John Paton, chief executive of US publisher the Journal Register Co and one of  the keynote speakers for the upcoming WAN-Ifra international Newsroom Summit, doesn’t mince words when discussing his 'back from the brink' company’s ‘digital first’ transformational strategy (writes Larry Kilman).

“Stop listening to print people and put the digital people in charge – of everything,” he says.

Paton's keynote will begin the discussion for senior newspaper executives and chief editors who will gather in Zurich on June 9-10 for the tenth anniversary of the summit, details of which are at http://www.wan-ifra.org/node/31877

Since Paton's appointment as CEO in early 2010, the Journal Register Co., which publishes 27 dailies and hundreds of non-dailies, has frequently been hailed as an example of how to innovate dramatically – particularly impressive given the company's past financial difficulties, which led to a brief bankruptcy and re-emergence in 2009.

“The most important and most opportunistic time is now for newspapers to make that transition from what we were to what we are going to be,” he says.

The summit's scope takes into account everything from paid-content models to the potential impact of new platforms (such as tablets) to newsroom integration.

Conference highlights include:

- One year on since the new newsroom, by Ralph Grosse-Bley, editor-in-chief of Ringier in Switzerland, who will explain how the company has integrated its completely newly designed newsroom with its four Blick products: Blick, Sonntags Blick, Blick am Abend and the Blick.ch website.

- The quest to go fully digital by 2015 without completely abandoning print, by Erling Tind Larson, who is digital manager of Berlingske Media in Denmark. Larson heads the company’s BT website which is the fastest-growing online news site in Denmark, and in the midst of pushing much of its resources to digital.

- The technical developer has never been more important, by Espen Egil Hanson, editor-in-chief of VG Digital News & Media in Norway, which has been at the forefront of everything digital and thrives on embracing the latest technologies to exploit its vast multimedia content.

- The future of news and digital content: mobile, social, apps, ad-supported – and paid? By Gerd Leonhard,  media futurist and chief executiv eof The Futures Agency in Switzerland, who will give the Day Two keynote. The Wall Street Journal calls Leonhard “one of the leading Media Futurists in the World.”

- Paid-content strategies, by Neil Thackray,  cofounder of Briefing Media, who will be examining what he dubs ‘The Great Content Debate’, as well as Will Lewis – a man uniquely well placed to consider the issue as group general manager of News International.

Other speakers include: Robert Picard, director of research, Reuters Institute, University of Oxford, UK, Wolfgang Büchner, editor-in-chief, Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Germany, Justin Williams, assistant editor, Telegraph Media Group, UK, Alan McLean, assistant editor, interactive news, New York Times, USA, Katherine Silver, head of marketing development, Archant, UK, Aralynn McMane,  executive director for young readership development, WAN-Ifra France, Sarah Schantin Williams, senior associate consultant, WAN-Ifra, Germany, and more.

For the evolving conference programme, registration and other information, please consult http://www.wan-ifra.org/node/31877