G-8 major news agencies resolve to boost Net business

TOKYO, June 19 (Kyodo) - Major news agencies from the Group of Eight nations renewed their resolve Wednesday to redouble their efforts to deal with various challenges such as how to make better inroads into areas such as online news in the face of continuing
sluggish sales of newspapers.
In a meeting in Tokyo, executives from France's AFP, the Associated Press of the United States, Britain's Reuters, Russia's Itar-Tass, Germany's DPA, Italy's ANSA and Japan's Kyodo News also discussed restrictions on coverage of sports events and how better to ensure the safety of journalists. Canada, which is also a member of the G-8, was not represented at the meeting.
Kyodo President Satoshi Ishikawa, who chaired the meeting, explained the difficulties facing the embattled Japanese newspaper industry including sharp year-to-year decreases in advertising revenues and declining circulation.
Ishikawa also said that Kyodo and its subscribers have struggled to boost projects in fields that are relatively new to them, including the distribution of digital and movie content, and have been suffering from ''a double-whammy of declining advertising revenues and soaring production costs.''
The participants also compared notes on how news organizations should differentiate information for sale from free content at a time when many people are able to read news online for free and have access to so-called ''free papers.''
The participants gathered in Tokyo prior to the July 7-9 G-8 summit in Japan's northernmost main island of Hokkaido.
Given that Italy will host the G-8 summit next year, ANSA is scheduled to host the next G-8 summit of news agencies.