WebProNews

About two-dozen newspaper executives met in Chicago Thursday to discuss the future of the struggling industry and come up with ways to charge for their online content.

The gathering was part of the Newspaper Association of America's annual event and included top executives from the New York Times, Gannett, E.W. Scripps, McClatchy, Hearst Newspapers and MediaNews Group among others.

"The group discussed topics such as protection of intellectual property rights and approaches to the Congress and Administration to address these and other issues," said John F. Sturm, president and CEO, Newspaper Association of America.

John F. Sturm

"With antitrust counsel present, the group listened to executives from companies representing various new models for obtaining value from newspaper content online," said Sturm. "The participants also shared success stories in driving new revenue to their newspapers products."

Other topics included a possible industry wide solution to classified advertising. Newspaper print editions have seen sharp declines of $7 billion, or 40 percent, of their annual classified advertising revenue since 2006, with the majority of it moving to free or less expensive options online.

News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch said on Thursday in an interview with his Fox Business Network that offering news online for free was "going to stop" and newspapers were going to start having to charge readers for online content.

"I believe newspapers will be selling subscriptions on the Web," he said. "You're going to have to pay for your favorite newspaper on the Web."