GUEST POST: A 'Two-Second Guide' to the Future of Newspaper Journalism

THIS IS A GUEST POST BY KATE KENDALL, ONLINE EDITOR FOR MARKETING MAGAZINE.

Kate responded with a comment to the previous PR Warrior post - 'Twitterrific' Time Magazine Shows Up the Australian Newspaper. It contained some insightful comments regarding the future of newspaper journalism, and I felt it appropriate Kate's view was not buried in the comments section but rather given 'centre stage'.

Great post Trev. OK, here is the hack's two-second guide to the future of newspaper journalism. (Well, someone's got to have a hack at it!).

• There is definitely a place for a tangible offering, although not in the current format. It needs to be more portable to cope with the changing consumer behaviour – being out of the home more. This doesn't necessarily mean it has to be digital.  

• Employ community managers across masthead sections and new media specialists – and by specialist, I don't mean promoting the old-school reporter who started with the paper as a cadet at 17! They need to have a fresh and critical eye. If you can get someone who can transcend into the weblebrity sphere, then you have a portion of your traffic sorted. 

• Walled content is a tricky situation to trial since most content is available for free a click away. If you go by the 'content is king', then if something is truly outstanding/remarkable and unique, people will pay. Specialist news sites work well e.g. Crikey and the WSJ. Most would hardly expect to pay for something like News.com.au since it's mainly what I'd call 'stock' content. 

• Complement online content with print. Print crusaders don't have to replicate all of their stories online – sure the breaking news is a must, but longer features could be a print treat – give people a reason to buy it. 

• Hire knowledgeable people – people who can research well. The problem with the bashing of Twitter by old-school outlets is that they don't understand it and haven't done enough to try to. One of the benefits of reading peer-related content online is that I hear from people who don't try to be generalist – they are specialist reporters. Bloggers who actually understand what they are writing about (well most of the time). If a journo has covered local political beats for an eternity and then moves across to a story about Twitter without ever being on the platform, then surely it will turn out to be a compromised report. 

• In my opinion, the people who are keeping the cred up online of papers, are the technology and digital reporters. Often, these evangelists have more followers and online connections than the masthead itself. If you search the following keywords 'Sydney Morning Herald Twitter' into Google, you almost get Asher Moses – the tech reporter - before the actual official account. 

And yes, perhaps News's new MySpace are sites like The Punch? But, I still question the innovation and longevity of the offering. Especially since it is not paying for contributions when it has the capacity to – hardly encouraging sustainable journalism (*currently trying to source the link where I read this*).

Anyway, why didn't they buy something like 'The Bulletin' and use the masthead equity to launch a solid site with a strong and full editorial team? Good on them for getting it up and running though.