WAN-IFRA CEO Stig Kirk Ørskov calls the Marseille Congress 2026 one of the most successful in the organisation’s history as the Deep Dive Report distils insights from 150 speakers across 50 sessions.
By Imran Malik | Courtesy: Stig Kirk Orskov-CEO WAN-IFRA | MediaBites.com.pk
The global journalism industry now has its most comprehensive strategic resource for 2026. The World News Media Congress 2026 Deep Dive Report has been released by WAN-IFRA, the World Association of News Publishers, capturing the collective thinking of the world’s leading news publishers from three extraordinary days in Marseille this June.
Stig Kirk Ørskov, CEO of WAN-IFRA, described the Marseille Congress as one of the most successful in the organization’s history — a gathering that brought together more than 1,300 media leaders from 66 countries for what he called one of the strongest speaker line-ups the Congress has ever assembled.
Why This Report Matters
The World News Media Congress is not a typical industry conference. It is the global journalism industry’s most important annual gathering — the place where editors, CEOs, product leaders, and innovators openly share what is working, what is not working, and where journalism is heading next.
The Deep Dive Report distills those three extraordinary days into a strategic playbook for news publishers worldwide. Drawing on more than 150 speakers and 50 sessions, it showcases the ideas, innovations, and practical lessons emerging from the world’s leading news media organizations.
For publishers who could not attend Marseille, the report offers the next best thing. For those who were there, it provides a structured, returnable resource capturing insights that even the most attentive attendee could not absorb over three intensive days.
The Speaker Line-Up — The Best in the Business
The Marseille Congress assembled a speaker roster that few global media events could match. A.G. Sulzberger, publisher of The New York Times, delivered what many attendees described as a defining address on defending journalism’s value in the AI era. Katharine Viner, Editor-in-Chief of The Guardian, was among the voices shaping the conversation on editorial resilience and trust.
The full roster included Louis Dreyfus, Jane Barrett, Gard Steiro, Joseph O., Anders Opdahl, Goli Sheikholeslami, Henna Virkkunen, Varun Shetty, Tom Rubin, Pedro Pina, and Ezra Eeman — a genuinely global cross-section of media leadership spanning publishers, platform companies, technology leaders, and editorial innovators.
The breadth and quality of that speaker list reflects the Congress’s unique position as the one gathering where the full spectrum of global publishing leadership comes together in a spirit of genuine openness and knowledge sharing.
What the Report Covers
From Sulzberger’s call to defend journalism’s value in the AI era to practical case studies from The New York Times, Reuters, VG, Politico, Mediahuis, Amedia, Le Monde, and The Guardian, the report demonstrates how publishers across different markets, sizes, and business models are responding to unprecedented change with creativity, resilience, and innovation.
The report addresses the five defining transformations of the current media landscape. How revenue models are shifting from print dependency toward more balanced digital, events, and platform revenue. How newsrooms are embedding AI into daily workflows beyond early experimentation. How audience-first editorial strategies are overtaking reach-focused approaches. How the news creator economy is reshaping content distribution. And how audio and video are becoming essential publishing formats for reaching younger audiences.
These are not theoretical discussions. The Deep Dive Report grounds every strategic insight in specific, named examples from publishers who have already implemented change and can report on what happened when they did.
The Team Behind the Report
Ørskov reserved specific recognition for the WAN-IFRA Insights team whose work transformed the Congress into a year-round strategic resource. Dean Roper led the editorial effort alongside Neha Gupta, Teemu Henriksson, Lucinda Jordaan, Brian V., and Aultrin Vijay — a team whose dedication to capturing and synthesizing insights from 150 speakers across 50 sessions produced what is genuinely one of the most valuable single documents the global publishing industry has access to in 2026.
Ørskov also extended his thanks to every speaker who contributed openly at Marseille. “Your willingness to share ideas, experiences and hard-earned lessons is what makes this report and our community so valuable,” he said.
How to Access the Report
The World News Media Congress 2026 Deep Dive Report is available exclusively to WAN-IFRA members through the organization’s Knowledge Hub. Membership in WAN-IFRA, which MediaBites.com.pk holds, provides access to this and the full library of WAN-IFRA research, reports, and strategic resources throughout the year.
For non-members, the report represents one of the most compelling arguments for joining WAN-IFRA that the organization could offer. The depth, breadth, and practical applicability of what 150 of the world’s best media minds shared over three days in Marseille is not available anywhere else in this format.
Why Pakistani Publishers Should Read This
Pakistan’s online news industry, with an estimated 800 to 1,200 active platforms generating meaningful daily traffic, faces the same AI disruption, audience fragmentation, revenue diversification challenge, and trust erosion that Marseille’s 1,300 media leaders were addressing.
The solutions being developed at The New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, and VG are not exclusively relevant to large Western publishers. The principles of audience-first editorial strategy, AI workflow integration, creator economy adaptation, and sustainable revenue diversification are as applicable to MediaBites and Pakistan’s digital publishers as they are to any newsroom in Europe or North America.
The World News Media Congress 2026 Deep Dive Report is the year’s most important reading for any publisher who takes the future of their newsroom seriously.
