Online Integration

The Editors Weblog has spoken to four Uk newspaper executives about how to stay ahead of the competition in online news.

The analysis splits into four parts,the first asking where online should sit in the set up of the news room alongside the traditional print area.

Anne Spackman 0f Times online says

"that the Internet is a specific medium and needs to have a team who sit together and spar off each other"

The Telegraph has of course fully integrated its news room with no distinction between the different mediums.The Sun and the Mirror have their online teams sitting in different areas.

But it continues

"Integration isn’t just a matter of sitting journalists next to each other and asking them to post to print and web. Integrating the media themselves is key."

And

"the print product can boost on-line readership and vice versa. The Telegraph believes that the growth of the newspaper readership base is precisely because they have a strong web product – it serves to introduce new readers to the paper."

There is still uncertainty whether online or print should be te first place to produce stories and much eveidence that headlines have to be changed online so that they are picked up by search engines.The evidence is that there is much work to do in terms of integration