So the morning couldn't have started any better. „You really pissed us off“, said Grzegoryz Piechota and Jerzey Wojcik (Gazeta Wyborzca) at the beginning of their presentation, answering the statement of one unnamed conference-participant on the day before, who told them that all newspapers are going to die soon. Now we just saw an inspiring presentation on the future of newspapers by Grzegoryz and Jerzey. They talked about how seemingly old concepts of good journalism presented in long extraordinary stories might in fact also the future of the medium.

Their plausible message was how marketers and editors need to come together to reach benefits for both sides (going step by step and starting from the bottom, not the higher management). As someone with an idealistic journalistic approach, I somehow saw those two branches as counterparts. This seems to be the same expectation Jerzey and Grzegoryz found in their fellow co-workers. But sometimes expectations are not met, and that is a good thing.

I can now see my view can be wrong – at least with good marketers, who share your values of quality journalism. They showed how newspapers should not only promote their brand, but also their outstanding content and their staff, because they thought those are the things that make a newspaper unique.

Now I guess this is a very basic insight, nothing revolutionary. Judging by this first presentation I as an marketing newbie can learn a lot here. But like Helge I am wondering, if this is also the case for the hundreds of interesting people in the audience here. I guess the presentation Jerzey and Grzegoryz did would perfectly fit in a lecture at a universtity's communications department, but it may be less adaequate in a room of newspaper experts. Maybe that is why the conversation with the audience mostly circled around political issues like the transport problem of the Netherlands.