Journalism training news
June 18 2008
Editors confirm newspapers heading for multi-media integration
Most newspaper editors believe the integrated multi-media newsroom will soon become the norm with journalists producing digital content for print, video and online, according to a global survey.
The findings are revealed in the Newsroom Barometer, an annual survey of editors around the world conducted by Zogby International and commissioned by the World Editors Forum and Reuters.
Most (86 per cent) believe integrated print and online newsrooms will become the norm and 83 per cent believe journalists will be expected to be able to produce content for all media within five years.
Other main findings include:
Fourty-four per cent believe on-line will be the most common platform for reading news in the future, compared with 41 per cent last year. Thirty-one cited print (down from 35 per cent last year), 12 per cent mobile and seven per cent e-paper. The rest were unsure.
Thirty-five per cent said training journalists in new media was the number one priority for investing in editorial quality. Recruiting more journalists was cited by 31 per cent, up from 22 per cent last year.
A majority of editors - 56 per cent - believe news in the future will be free, up from 48 per cent from last year's survey. Only one-third believe the news will remain paid for, while 11 per cent were unsure.
Two-thirds of respondents believe the importance of opinion and analysis pages will increase.
A majority - 58 per cent - think the decline in young readership is the biggest threat for the future of newspapers.
The global survey gathered the answers of more than 700 editors and senior news executives from 120 countries, and was conducted online in March 2008.
"The survey shows that editors-in-chief are already multi-media minded and that they have the capacity to carry out the transition from print-only to print and online," Bertrand Pecquerie, Director of the World Editors Forum, told the Editors Weblog, where a full breakdown of the report is available.