Post-COVID, India's newspaper industry will never be the same, but when you get 1000 executives together, ideas about change just keep bubbling through.

And that's exactly what started to happen today with WAN-Ifra's virtual Indian Media Leaders eSummit.

What would have been the organisation's 28^th annual India conference has opened not in person, but via a portal which included both sessions, networking and a digital 'exhibition', and proved even more interactive than the usual roving microphone for delegates' questions.

Greetings came from WAN-Ifra South Asia managing director Magdoom Mohamed and regional director K N Shanth Kumar - who is also a director of The Printers Mysore - noting record registrations across this week's two events.

Later this morning, three leaders from the Times of India, Malayala Manorama and the India Express discussed what the changes wrought by COVID-19 would mean, but a brisk opener was to get South China Morning Post chief executive Gary Liu together for a conversation with Quintillion Media co-founder Ritu Kapur (pictured).

Though a regular speaker at these events, Liu has a lot to talk about, not least because of the fast-changing situation in Hong Kong, where the 117-year-old SCMP is the established English language newspaper.

Liu arrived at the beginning of 2017, and has had his hands full, not just with his given brief - since the paper was acquired by Alibaba owner Jack Ma - of digital transformation, but of course with the pandemic, the protests, the US-China trade war, national security legislation, and with explaining China to the rest of the world.

"That's our unique proposition," he told his virtual audience, "something we have achieved through rediscovering new value in the old publication we work for."

Though a "very conservative" organisation, the SCMP is well into its shift to digital, and one of Liu's initiatives has been to create a dedicated team for the print editions - 20 people out of 350 - instead of dedicating the smaller team to digital.

"Hong Kong is part of the most interesting place on earth," he says. "The rising super-power China will be the most important story, and we reckoned any news organisation that could dominate that story would have value. Our primary asset is that we are in the city that allows us to report China best."

The story of SCMP's transformation - of brand and identity (with the signal flag K); process, priority and structure; and the focus on data - has been told a few times, not least in these columns, but the subject doesn't stand still, making Liu an irresistible opener for each event.

Now, with last month's launch of a closed information system for Asia, access to a "very restricted China" has given the publisher increased confidence to move its business model away from a wholly-advertising-driven one... and inspire others such as today's WAN-Ifra delegates.

Liu answered questions about the cultural challenges of change, the rate at which users' expectations change - every six months instead of ten-to-20 years - and the importance of tech in driving efficiency and "allowing us to package our product everywhere".

With the fight for the ad dollar harder, and funding needed for quality journalism, Liu says the answer has to be multiple revenue channels, "not just advertising, subscriptions and events, but all of those things.

"My role is to scale these things, as profit is the only way to protect the long-term future of journalism."

With there being "no more experienced journalist anywhere writing for print", protection of press freedom has to be a proactive operation, with objectivity, balance and no self-censorship, "otherwise we shall slide backwards".

And what would he ask for, "if you had Alibaba's magic lamp," a delegate questioned, with a slanting reference to SCMP's owner? "We don't have a magic lamp, but I'd ask for media literacy, media education around the world," he answered. Most of us would second that.

The virtual conference resumes today at 3pm India Standard Time, and tomorrow at 10am and 3pm. The separate two-day India Printing Summit continues on September 23-24. GXpress is a media partner.

Peter Coleman