Despite the title, Friday's Future Forum plenaries were more about innovation than influence, while giving a nod to good oldfashioned print.
The focus was on making all news media's platforms better and more efficient, while taking advantage of the fact that print "was not going away".
Leading speakers from around the world joined senior executives from Australia and New Zealand for a busy programme, preceded on Thursday by half a day of streamed workshop sessions.
Newspaper Works chairman Michael Miller - who is in the process of jumping from chief executive of APN News & Media to executive chairman of News Corp Australia - set the pace with a call to increase the rate of innovation. He recalled developments which had taken place since the 1814 installation of a 1100 cph press at The Times and contrasted US newspapers' resistance to the introduction of colour "for which they have suffered the consequences".
"We need to learn from rival organisations and get better at working together," he urged, pointing to the "more competitors than at any time".
A video link seemed a strange way to kick off the conference, but it was the message not the medium that counted when WPP chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell homed in from his office in New York, where it was still early evening.
The approbation of the English knight who turned a shopping basket maker into the world's biggest advertising agency business - and according to Wikipedia collected a salary package of £400million ($870 million) last year - was to be valued, even if qualified, and Sorrell came good on the dangers of separating print from the media package and the questionable value of some online audience: Facebook viewership was "at the other end of the spectrum" and standards applied to it were very low, he said. Engagement of print and online newspapers was "far greater than we thought possible".
Not that he was letting the conversation - with Newspaper Works chief executive Mark Hollands - go all one way, Sorrell slipping into negotiation mode, questioning "how we can work out deals that are even more attractive to our clients".
There was praise - "clear statistical evidence" showing the power, "even of traditional newspapers" - and criticism: "You wouldn't give your media plan to a media owner, so why do you give it to Google," he asked.
Keen to experiment and see media owners do the same, he said that while traditional print - which has to reform and consolidate - would remain under pressure, "we're up for digital print, and we're up for digital TV".
And finally, "the pendulum will swing back and give even traditional media owners an opportunity". Even with the 'evens', Australian news media had the message it wanted.
And then more from Raji Narisetti: "Print is not going away - own that belief - and 'how long' is not the right question," he said.
Narisetti who is News Corp's strategy senior vice president, has a background which includes the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and a foundation role with India's Mint in Delhi, the city where he started his journalistic career.
Neither a 'glass half full' nor a 'half empty' man, he says he likes to think that the glass is refillable, pointing to news media audience reach which has "never been as large as it is today".
But while promiscuous online viewers needed the best - "anything less online and you'll be in trouble" - he questioned whether publishers needed to put as much energy into print. It was OK if reducing and outsourcing affected the product a little: "We have to bring costs down as an industry," he said, warning, "digital advertising will grow, but not necessarily for you."
Narisetti urged more time be spent on ad innovation and the move to context, citing the engagement of recent campaigns, despite the fact that they had drawn larger audiences on Facebook. It was also "too early to give up on homepages" and paywall innovation was a further area for investment, he said. And of course, video, despite its cost. (News subsidiary) Storyful was identifying and verifying viral video, while video labs deserved attention.
On ad blockers, he criticised those who denied their existence or impact, and were happy to wait and see. Ten to 40 per cent of current visitors have ad blockers on, he said, although paywalls would help defeat their purpose.
Satisfying an endless appetite for news was "a wonderful problem to have" but publishers had to choose between "meaningful differences and better sameness", and finally, "if you want to be part of a revolution, it's better to start one".
After that, there was no particular agenda to this year's five-cornered chief executives forum. The musical chairs belonged to News Corp Australia chief executive Julian Clarke (who retires - again - at the end of the year), Michael Miller(who becomes its executive chairman), radio man Ciaran Davis (who has just succeeded Miller as chief executive of APN News & Media), Chris Wharton and Greg Hywood, chief executives respectively of Seven West Media and Fairfax Media.
After 30 years in the newspaper industry, Clarke was bullish about its future but wary about business models, especially for mobile, where 50 per cent of content is now consumed. Retail advertisers needed to understand "the full edition" - including apps and PDF versions - from which they benefitted, and "the different experience we bring to the conversation".
Hywood touched on news media's strength in content, which should be "the last aspect of cost reduction" and urged, "we cause ourselves a lot of damage by attacking each others' relative quality". Disturbing was that the call for a level of mutual respect, working together on areas of mutual interest such as defamation, and "getting together to support each other" still draws titters and laughter from delegates.
Indeed, fresh from a background in radio - which is "good at looking at what is good for the industry" - Ciaran Davis was sympathetic, but there were other imperatives: Mobile was "the most exciting thing that has happened to this industry" and should be at the core of what we do for the next ten years.
Davis and Hywood also share an interest in regional publishing, where Fairfax is engaged in major reorganisation - raising questions about how to deliver total market solutions - and APN sees opportunities to be more hyperlocal.
Questions about the modest number of women in senior positions - important was the "different experience women bring to the conversation," said Clarke - led on to ethnic balance, with Miller saying the industry "didn't reflect the audience we are writing to" and Wharton admitting that the number of indigenous staff within Seven West was "probably not adequately represented at the top".
Environmental issues were on the agenda when delegates returned from coffee to hear federal minister Greg Hunt acknowledge the news industry's recycling record and announce the sixth national agreement on the subject.
A respectful captive audience also got to hear about government priorities, water policies, clean waste, threatened species and the "under-reported" heritage success of the Great Barrier Reef, in which Australia had become "a global role model". Pay attention, editors in the room!
More directly relevant to the industry's challenges was the 'champions of change' panel and the individual presentations which preceded it.
Jane Hastings had the emerging success story of bringing together the disparate businesses of APN New Zealand into NZME. (don't forget the final fullpoint - which she says, embraces the digital component).
More importantly, it focussed a news audience of 2.1 million Kiwis, a million for sport and 2.7 million for entertainment - aggregation making it the number one entertainment business overnight.
Colocation of teams - including establishment of a single Auckland news team from next month - brought challenges demanding credibility, and respect for specialists under a single value slogan, 'In tune, and Tuned In'.
Sales staff found crossovers were lower than expected, and discovered a great opportunity to sell more, but "just because we've integrated, it doesn't mean the client's budget has doubled".
The single newsroom - nine months in the planning - becomes "audience first" and creates a hub for new growth. Hastings turns to branded content, events, experiental content and transactions, adding "now it's time to clip the ticket". Benefits have been revenue, efficiency, and the creation of "a relevant media business with a future," she says.
Much of the success of another newsroom merger - that of Seven News Perth and the West Australian - belongs to two men, and the Future Forum lined up both of them: Brett McCarthy (editor of the West Australian) and Seven News news director Howard Gretton took up an invitation to look at overseas newsrooms together when Chris Wharton raised the need to relocate the TV station's facilities.
What they saw in Finland and Denmark - and to a lesser extent at the BBC and ITV in London - set off a line of thought which led to the merger of the Perth newsrooms. "Nothing was a real fit for our situation, but we recognised that there was real potential," McCarthy says.
Six months down the line, after bringing together "an awesome amount of experience and capability, it seems like we are using only 20 per cent of the potential," he says.
With the move to what was previously only the West Australian Newspapers' headquarters, has come an extension of existing technology - including CCI's Newsgate systems - and the introduction of virtual studios.
In the newsroom, two long, curved desks bring chiefs of staff and producers together, the closeness "running on oldfashioned chatter and overheard conversations... and if it's big, you can stand and deliver". Days - which run from 4am to 1am - have 'slightly different rhythms" with TV producers attending the newspaper conference and one from the newspaper attending the TV conference. "We decided the best policy would be total openness, and look for opportunities to cooperate," McCarthy says. "They cooperate and still compete."
A great buy-in from senior staff has helped, and problems remain - from the handling of exclusives to the amount of fridge space - but there is now a rhythm "like no other in the country" with the 200 journalists "learning a new respect for each other" and meeting in the digital space.
A smaller post-lunch audience caught what Hollands described as "the juxtaposition of friend and foe" as he was called on for an armchair chat with Google's strategic partnerships director for partner business solutions, Jason Washing.
The tradition of not putting guest speakers under excessive pressure was evident as Hollands' questions were mostly put through a "Washing-machine" (our expression), and interpreted or reinterpreted before being answered. An invitation to respond to News Corp criticism of "piracy" became an opportunity for the Google executive to tell of the search giant's efforts to stop the piracy of others, for example. Its intervention in mobile became a desire to provide an interpretation layer.
On the size of Google's competitive take, Washing said the company was committed to working with all participants and "wanted to make the pie grow". The overarching culture was not necessarily to look at what everyone else was doing, but to "see what we can do".
"I'm lucky," Washing says. "We have a culture of innovation... of swinging from the fences." The baseball reference - it means trying for a big score - is one you can look up. I won't tell you how.
Another double-act was that of Mark Challinor - Media Future consultant and currently INMA president - and David Murphy, who edits Mobile Marketing Magazine and runs a UK business called Dot Media.
"Mobile is a behaviour," Challinor says, creating opportunities which are "here today", while Murphy reminds that disruption - which we should see as an opportunity, "is the new normal".
There's a lot going on out there, from pizza apps and tablets on supermarket trolleys to Clare and Miko's virtuial reality experience, but how come we're making peanuts from caviar? Murphy cites the Winnipeg Free Press "iTunes for news" experiment and the Springer/NYT involvement in Blendle - which "doesn't work for news" - where success is in the engagement but not necessarily the monetisation.
It's an agenda rather than a solution - there are three smartwatches in the room; "get one" Murphy directs - with major innovators such as the NYT, Washington Post and the Guardian to watch.
More practically, news media designer Mario Garcia had the best work from around the world to cite, and Huffington Post branded content head Lauri Baker had Arianna's thoughts and experience to share: "The biggest lesson is that social media is the new front page," she says. Of particular interest were her views on native content, an area in which "we thought we could make a difference", challenging brands to "put on journalists' hats". A partner studio helps brands to be better, helping deliver clarity, compelling and connected content.
Putting the 'future' into the Future Forum was last year's Hergarty scholarship winner Mark Baker, his role updated from editor of the Launceston Examiner to Fairfax Media's Tasmanian group managing editor and someone Hollands says "seems to have been promoted every time I talk with him".
Baker's take on the industry has the freshness of youth, following the tour he undertook as his prize, and the observations from it. He lists 'good guys' - among the Washington Post, where "it's always day one" for Jeff Bezos - an unnamed 'bad guy' in Silicon Valley, "stuck waiting for an answer" and others such as Medium and Huffington Post.
"Some are unable to change," he says.
He reviews video - for which advertisers will pay a premium - native advertising - expected to be worth $21 billion by 2018, but which "comes with a warning" - and a revival for newsletters, " a snapshot of what's in the paper".
Earl Wilkinson's "burning rope", he sees as a stick of dynamite with two fuses.
The solution? If getting bought by a multi-billionaire is not an option, learn from the experts: "We know what not to do," he says. The good guys, "understand where they are, but have not lost sight of where they want to be he says".
Closing the conference, Mark Hollands said he sensed a real shift this year, "now more creative and optimistic. Our attitudes to challenges are as important as anything we do."
Peter Coleman
Pictured: NZME. chief executive Jane Hastings
On our homepage: News Corp's Raji Narisetti