It’s not often that you get people from Popbitch, News of the World, The Guardian, The Telegraph, Metro and the Southwark News in the same room. Those were just some of the guests in an eclectic POLIS gathering to discuss the long-predicted death of newspapers. It was a private meeting so I can’t name names or give quotes. But it was a fascinating insight in to how top editorial managers think their industry is evolving. And the world really is turning upside-down. I’m not breaking any confidences when I say it was the free newspapers that waxed most lyrical about print journalism, while it was the old-fogey Telegraph which cared most about the (non-)reading habits of young people. It was reassuring and impressive to see how much these people care about newspapers. Most think that the inky thing printed on dead trees will survive  for the next decade. But they also all admitted that the lifeblood of advertising is draining away online by agencies desperate for novelty marketing and new media audiences. The mighty News of The World is the epitome of a newspaper: big investment in journalism to break massive stories that make you pay for it every Sunday – and it sells millions. The Southwark news reaches about 10,000 people in one of the poorest parts of London. Both are now going online in a desperate attempt to keep their brands alive. I believe that newspaper people will have to be far more innovative than even these pioneers that drank the POLIS booze last night – or it will be the Popbitches of this world that wake up without a hangover.