As the first day of the World News Media Congress evolved in Washington, two groups - present or otherwise - were notable in the room: The millennials and other web natives for whom print media has become increasingly irrelevant, and the much smaller group of "rich owners" who are helping a couple of legacy businesses into the current century.

We're talking here of Warren Buffett and Jeff Bezos, the views of whose lieutenants were among those most sought-after by delegates.

First in to bat, executive editor of the Washington Post Marty Baron admitted life would be easier if there was no legacy print business to deal with, but wasn't about to abandon its revenue or audience.

"We need to face reality and think entrepreneurially," he told moderator Maria Ressa (of Philippines web publisher Rappler).

Amazon boss Bezos - who arrived as owner of the Washington paper a year-and-a-half ago - had "brought a lot of questions and ideas... plus capital," he said.

"He was able to help us bridge the transition from print to digital, and brought 'knowledge of customers' from a company focused on customer satisfaction.

"Readers aren't platform agnostic, because they've demonstrated that they don't like print," he said.

With more focus on delivering the digital and mobile products readers want, the Post has recruited 70 new digital natives to its staff, and will shortly introduce metrics to show previously deluded reporters whether people are reading their stories: "They know the story better than anyone and we will equip them to take responsibility for developing it."

Baron says despite the need to "cut more and do more", resources are still available for the sort of research (think Watergate and uncovering sexual abuse by priests) which has made WaPo famous, and now is a great time to get into journalism. But "it is not a charity as far as Jeff Bezos is concerned," he added.

Later Post president and general manager Steve Hills joined two of Warren Buffett's men - BH Media president and chief executive Terry Kroeger and Thomas Silvestri of his Richmond Times-Despatch property - and USA Today president and publisher Larry Kramer, to develop the theme.

Hills says print had "fuelled the ability to have a digital future" with investments in WaPo's newsroom and technology rewarded with a 66 per cent larger audience in the last year and twice the page views, plus "bigger growth than anyone else" - including digital darlings such as Buzzfeed - in the first quarter of this year.

"Bezos and Buffett are both smart and rich, and it's nice to have a business genius at the helm, but these (investments) have to pay off and skill sets will set us apart."

Kroeger observed that "our wealthy owner got there by doing things", but for those without the bag of cash, USA Today's Kramer was able to report that core values, "willingness to be entrepreneurial" and an investment in "real journalism" across its national and 81 regional newspapers had paid off.

On the vexed question of the future of print - especially midweek editions - Kramer noted that people "aren't going to print for the same things they did 20 years ago" while Kroeger warned against self-fulfilling prophesies.

Then it began to get weird: After talk of Buffett's "habit businesses", a delegate asked what they were doing about the "two different audiences" of print and digital, with Kroeger beginning a process of denial which carried into the next session: "It isn't so," he claimed, asserting that a high proportion of print readers also used digital. And Hills: "Digital is just a new form factor - there's no reason to believe we can't go on doing what we have."

And there was more denial when WAN-Ifra secretary general Larry Kilman chaired a panel made up of a publisher, a couple of academics and a millennial; former Reuters Institute research director Robert Picard even wanted to deny that millennials existed, other than as a marketing group, and that if they did, "we're going to have a problem" with a young people who were "fundamentally different" from previous generations. While they might be interested in news, they didn't like the style and tone of journalism.

Others saw different problems, Pew Research Centre's Amy Mitchell pointing to issues with the roles of algorithms and 'friends' on social media sites (notably Facebook's Instant Articles), and Anders Nyland (editor-in-chief of Norway's Bergensavisen) urging that young children should be taught what information they can or cannot trust online.

Amid that, the early naivety of self-confessed millennial Leo Prieto - founder of Latin American blog FayerWayer - came as light relief. A site which had espoused open source software and Linux, it was heavily critical of Windows OS after taking unsolicited advertising from Microsoft... until it received another call from the advertiser, at least.

Refreshing too, despite its similar format (publisher, academics, millennial), was the realism of a second, much more digitally-aware panel comprising Tow Centre director of journalism research Emily Bell, former Twitter global news chair Vivian Schiller, Marcello Rech of Brazil's RBS Group, Tom Rosenstiel (American Press Institute) and (millennial) Liam Corcoran of Ireland's NewsWhip.

Here the issues included what non-traditional media were doing and "what legacy media should be doing about it" and whether Instant Articles was 'fair game'. "We're looking at an altered competitive environment," said Bell with modest understatement.

Earlier in a report released a bare three hours before being "walked through" for the congress, Amy Mitchell told of the generational divides in the way people are staying informed. A focus was how millenials - which she defined as those aged between 18-33 - gained their political news in the US. Overall they were less interested in political and government news than older generations, both of Generation X and baby boomers.

This age group gained most of their news from Facebook in an incidental way, while older Americans found out what was going on via the television news.

These millennials "go to social media for everything" and see the news there -

older millennials gaining more info on Google Plus, while younger ones placed more reliance on Twitter.

She forecast that as millennials age, they will become more interested in news, as older generations are. Their concerns include privacy - expressed by more people than actually do something, such as disable cookies - and while they have grown up with free content, "may be happy to pay for something that they feel particular pride in," she says.

Peter Coleman and Maggie Coleman

Pictured: Pew Research Centre's Amy Mitchell

On our homepage: Thomas Silvestri, Larry Kramer, Terry Kroeger and Steve Hills