With the issues of how integrated newsrooms engage better internally and externally, and making content count in the digital and mobile world, the ‘economics of content’ has emerged as the most challenging issue of the day.

“As newspapers continue to search for new sources of revenue, newsrooms are becoming more nimble in everything they do,” says Larry Kilman, the organisation’s director of communications and public affairs

The conference examined the major trends and challenges emerging in both large and small newsrooms and showed how editors and publishers are adapting and innovating as never before.

Examples included:

- The ‘New York Times’, which will introduce a “metered” paywall in early 2011 as readers will be allowed to access a certain number of articles free each month, then will be asked to pay.

"This has the benefit of allowing our millions of readers who come to us through search engine to still find our content," said chairman and publisher Arthur Sulzberger Those who use the site heavily will be charged, though the company has not yet finalized its pricing policies.

Sulzberger also spoke about the need for flexibility. "If we discover that we've tried something that's not working, we could change it,” he said. This should not be seen as failure, he emphasised, but as a willingness to adapt and learn.

- Raju Narisetti, managing editor of the ‘Washington Post’, explained the newspaper’s recent integration of its print and digital operations into a new newsroom, and spoke about how tracking audience response has been improved.

"When I started, there were five people who would receive news on the number of page views,” he said. “Now 46 key statistics on our traffic are shared with 120 people.”

Training in search engine optimisation has been provided for all reporters. There is a dedicated search and traffic editor who teaches journalists. This has helped increase the number of unique visitors by 17 per cent in the first seven months of 2010 compared to the same period last year.

- Andreas Wiele, Director of Axel Springer’s Bild Gruppe in Germany, believes Apple’s tablet iPad can be used by publishers to draw revenues for digital content and advertising.

“I think we should thank Apple for creating such a simple one-click system to charge for content, whether it be on iTunes, iPhone or the iPad. We should learn from this and reap the benefits of this,” he said.

‘Bild’, the largest newspaper in Europe, has ramped up its digital activities in the past five years when it embarked on an ambitious goal to have 50 per cent its revenues coming from digital activities – it is halfway there.

Mr Wiele believes the key to exploiting the new tablet devices is compelling story-telling, applying the same journalistic standards for any story.

Summaries of all presentations at the conference, which drew 200 publishers, editors and other senior executives, advertising directors and other senior newspaper executives from 35  countries, can be found at www.wan-ifra.org/newsroom_summaries

Next year's Newsroom Summit will be held from June 9-10, in Zürich, Switzerland.