The World Association of Newspapers‘continues to have a fairly clear crystal ball that doesn’t get enough attention when it comes to the future of news. Look at how well its experts are faring on their predictions of what the newspaper would look like in 2020‘(.pdf), specifically Gerd Finkbeiner‘s prediction of a newspaper looking like a daily magazine.   Another underused resource is their report on world digital media trends, showing that wireless is growing aggressively only in the developing world.  

Still another resource’is the new PricewaterhouseCoopers report (.pdf) showing that same familiar pattern with newspapers, growth in South Africa and Asia but stabilization elsewhere.     The number of adults who read a’read a newspaper every day–1.9 billion–is greater than the number of’people who eat a Big Mac every year, according to WAN President Gavin O’Reilly.     The latest releases of the WAN’s research can be found here.     Thinking globally makes sense. As the Knight News Challenge winners have shown, innovation can come from anywhere.   If you are a senior news editor and want to get involved in international conversations about news, the World Editors Forum is a great place to start. Knight Foundation works on a mentoring project with WEF and the International Center for Journalists.