Conference "The Daily challenge" Newspapers: Particularities and Challenges. Press Center of the SGC-SGI, Thursday 26th April 2007
The aim of the Conference
The written press remains the keen edge of the sword of the information process. Although it lacks the charms of the small screen, it probes behind the image, while analysing, commenting, illuminating, emphasizing, opening up new prospects, putting forward conjectures, making projections. All these functions are a prerequisite to and constitute the ultimate guarantee for contemporary democracy: the critical and insightful citizen.Undeniably, there is competition between the written press and other forms of media. It is no wonder that other forms of media adopt consuming patterns of behaviour posing an immediate threat to the viability of the written press. Arguably, other media also aim at informing the citizens, targeting similar groups of “clients”.
Addressing this unavoidable competition can be a difficult conundrum: Some suggest taking copy of the other media. More images, less words. Certain others rejoin by suggesting the creation of a special, targeted audience, drawing a clear line between the TV audience and the readers of the written press. Others do not favour any sort of change: the written press will mainly rely on the predominance of the speech over the images. Besides, new forms of peaceful coexistence between the written press and other media have been put forward recently, those of synergy and cooperation.
This discussion lies at the heart of the conference. The aim is to address the issues under discussion from a much broader perspective than that of the Greek Press, taking into account that it is long since the media affairs have been international. Unavoidably, however, the conference focuses on the Greek press, dealing with methods and solutions to the challenging issues of viability and reliability, the latter ensuring its survival through the fierce competition of the last years and being vital to transparency and the functioning of democratic institutions.
The conference was open to media representatives, employees in the written and broadcast media, journalists, university media departments students and any interested person.
