“Print is not dead” was the catchcry of Melbourne’s traditional newspaper rivals during the opening panel session of the New News conference.

In a rare show of solidarity, both the editor of the Herald Sun, Damon Johnston, and The Age’s news director, Mark Forbes, agreed that their titles would be available in hard copy for years to come.

Mr Forbes said The Age had pivoted from a “digital first” approach to an “audience first” attitude in the way that it managed its various news platforms.  

Mr Johnston, meanwhile, said that although the Herald Sun now had50,000-60,000 people paying to read the paper online, “those are relatively small numbers and digital revenues are relatively small compared to print”.

“Our job is to stabilise the print edition of the Herald Sun while building a profitable digital future,” he told the audience at the Wheeler Centre where the annual three-day conference is being held.

“It’s become clear this year that now the questions are ‘what are you doing on mobile?’ ‘What sort of presence do you have on Facebook?’ ‘What’s your search engine optimisation like?’ ” — Mark Forbes, The Age 

Mr Forbes said that, thanks to Fairfax’s cost-cutting and changes in distribution, that print was now far more profitable than it had been at any time in the last five years. Fairfax Media, which owns The Age, as well as daily stablemates The Sydney Morning Herald and the Financial Review, was now “committed to print for the foreseeable future”.

Both editors agreed that the digital paywall business model had not turned out to be a “magic bullet” for saving traditional print media. Instead, the editors said their aim now was not to replace print readers with digital subscribers but to have the two co-exist.

Mr Johnston said digital subscribers had failed to match print subscriptions, while Mr Forbes admitted Fairfax may have over-reached in its digital ambitions and would now “recalibrate” its strategy.

He said Fairfax was now focused on  “audience first” and the focus of the group’s “brand strategy” was no longer the newspaper’s website but was shifting to mobile delivery and social media.

“It’s become clear this year that now the questions are ‘what are you doing on mobile?’ ‘What sort of presence do you have on Facebook?’ ‘What’s your search engine optimization like?’  That’s where the tracking is coming from — online. Those audience are just growing and are now the bulk of our business.”

Both Mr Forbes and Mr Johnston said that print advertising and display advertising would also play big roles in future revenues.

Also on the panel was the new editor-in-chief of the Guardian, Emily Wilson, who said publishing online was an “amazing freedom”.

“We just make great content and publish it with no massive headache around the delivery. It’s a great joy,” she said.

Ms Wilson said the publication made money from display advertising and brand partnerships and were “on track” to becoming “sustainable”.