These are some of the questions that a panel of high profile editor-in-chiefs from around the world, including Jaideep Bose, editor-in-chief, Times of India, Jimmy Orr, online news editor, Christian Science Monitor, USA, and Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief, The Guardian, UK, will discuss today.

The 2009 summit meetings of the world’s press - the 62nd World newspaper congress, the 16th world editors’ forum and info services expo, brought together more than 1000 publishers, chief executives, managing directors, and editors, including from Bhutan, to a four-day conference. All three congress sessions will be jointly inaugurated today by the Indian president, Pratibha Devi Singh Patil.

In a joint session with the world editors’ forum, the world newspaper congress will present an overview of world trends in the newspaper industry and the threat from internet.

According to WAN, the economic crisis has provoked a dramatic fall in advertising revenues throughout the newspaper world and has also been detrimental to circulation in many markets, even though total global sales continue to rise, particularly in developing countries. At the same time, new digital revenues continue to prove - at best - modest for the vast majority of news publishers, with little being generated from content and a slowdown in growth of advertising, which remains at a relatively low level.

This twin challenge, according to WAN, has led to major cost-cutting programmes and restructuring and, in the case of digital media, to the widespread perception that a radical change may be necessary to monetize content and abandon the ‘everything for free’ model.

During the conference from November 30 to December 3, senior executives from a wide range of newspaper companies will discuss and debate these issues and present case studies.

The world editors will also discuss the new newsroom challenge and editors from across India and South Asia will brief their counterparts on how they have launched new titles with new concepts, and why online traffic is not a threat to print editions.

Talking to Kuensel, consultant editor of Times of India, Deelip Padgoankar, said that internet was not an immediate threat to the newspapers in India. “Internet penetration isn’t so great, but we’ll have to prepare for the threat in the next few years,” he said.

India now ranks internationally as the second largest press market, after China, with almost 99 million copies sold daily - an increase in circulation of 36 percent over the past five years. Times of India, along with Economy Times, leading newspaper industry in India, also sell more than 8 million copies daily, according to Deelip Padgoankar.

Bhutan will also present to the world editors forum about newspaper trends and challenges in Bhutan. “With access to internet less than five percent, free access to online is not an immediate threat to the newspaper industry, although Bhutanese newspapers have experienced some drop in their circulation after they went online,” said a Bhutanese editor, attending the conference.