TEHRAN – With the participation of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the first-ever World Media Summit (WMS), dubbed as the media Olympics, is to be convened in Beijing, on October 8-10, 2009.

Hosted by the Xinhua News Agency, the WMS will be held in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of the People's Republic of China.
Leaders from newspapers and magazines, wire services, radio and television broadcasters as well as the internet and other media from across the globe will attend the meeting.
About 170 media organizations are to participate in the two-day conference, including 40 Chinese government and media organizations and more than 130 overseas media. There will be about 300 participants, including 260 foreign delegates and 40 Chinese delegates.
The Iranian delegate comprises of great media figures will also take part in the panel sessions of the two-day event.
In addition to its opening ceremony and plenary session, WMS will consist of four panel sessions on the eight topics of “Media challenges & solutions in digital & multimedia age,” “Traditional media via new emerging media: competition, reliance, co-existence & development,” “Financial crisis & media response,” “How traditional media to meet challenges of digital and internet technologies,” “Global media merging,” “Challenges & opportunities in digital & multi-media age,” and “Hi-tech's impact upon media development,” as well as “Shaping the future of news room & journalists”.
On the theme of “Cooperation, Action, Win-Win, and Development”, the summit will focus on how world media will face up to the challenges and opportunities of the digital era and cash in on the network technologies. The idea of holding a world media summit came up in a series of talks during the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008 between Xinhua and some other news agencies. The summit is aimed at promoting cooperation and development through a global exchange of ideas and information between traditional media and new emerging media in the 21st century.
The summit is a non-governmental, non-profit, high-level media conference regularly hosted in turn by world media organizations in the countries of their headquarters.
There are a number of international meetings and conferences held by media organizations in different parts of the world. But WMS has its particular importance as it breaks frames and boundaries of newspapers, wire services, radio and television broadcasters, the internet and other media, with the aim of promoting convergence of various media.
This will be a good opportunity for leaders of traditional media and new emerging media players to sit together and exchange views about challenges they face and those they expect in the future of the media industry