Newspaper conference

Press, 15 April 1980, Page 13

Newspaper conference

More than 160 delegates representing 52 newspapers from Indonesia, Australia, and New Zealand will be in Christchurch this week for a conference on newspaper production. It is the annual conference of the Pacific Area

Newspaper Production Association, and will run from tomorrow to Saturday. The executive director of the association (Mr W. A. Whitlock) said the association was the only technically oriented newspaper association in Australia

and New Zealand. It was formed to keep management abreast of changes in newspaper production. Most of this year's conference would be devoted to the introduction of copy processing systems in Australian and New Zealand newspapers, he said. “Newspaper production is far too important a subject to be left only to production executives,” said Mr Whitlock. "Computers have entered into every aspect of newspaper production and all executives in newspapers must understand this if their newspapers are to survive in today’s compettitive media world,” he said. The association was formed by four companies in Melbourne in 1969. In

1974 it extended its Interest to cover all the printing processes in the newspaper industry, and membership now includes the big metropolitan dailies as well as country weeklies. Some of the subjects covered in the discussions would include setting up an English language daily in Peking and what the forthcoming Australian satellite could mean for Australian newspapers, said Mr Whitlock. The association will announce the winners of its awards on Friday. The four awards are for excellence in production by a daily and a non-daily newspaper, the use of colour in newspapers, and the association’s plaque for newspaper design.