AFP chairman talks media future with US counterparts

Emmanuel Hoog, AFP's chairman and chief executive officer, wound up a US tour over the weekend involving talks with US counterparts on how news organizations are adapting to the rapidly evolving landscape of new mobile and Internet media platforms.

The weeklong trip to Washington and New York involved discussions with leading figures in both traditional and new media, including Jesse Angelo, editor-in-chief of The Daily, the iPad-only newspaper published by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, and Google News founder Krishna Bharat. Hoog also met Wednesday with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to discuss the work of the AFP Foundation, which trains journalists in emerging nations, partly in collaboration with the UN Development Program.

In talks with Associated Press CEO Tom Curley and Thomson-Reuters chief executive Tom Glocer, Hoog explored how the three global news agencies are evolving to face the challenges posed by the Internet and online competitors. At The New York Times, executive editor Bill Keller stressed his newspaper's reliance on AFP images, saying a survey showed the Times had published more than 500 AFP photos in its last 100 issues.