Significantly smaller than its immediate rival and operating in a market that has been on a downturn for 20 years, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer's plight is well known in the American newspaper industry. Some even predict that the daily will eventually die. But several reforms the paper is undergoing could prove these pessimists wrong.

A few years back, the P-I launched "Project Tornado", an initiative which repurposed some newsroom employees to finding out specifically what the paper's readers wanted to see in the paper. Now, the project's findings are being implemented, causing a complete restructuring of the newsroom.

Tornado found, as most newspaper/new media pundits have been predicting, that the issues that most concerned readers tended to be local and that stories from outside the area should be given a local flavor. In order to provide better local coverage, the newspaper had to adapt its newsroom.

The paper's managing editor, David Mccumber explained that "Instead of tying staff to individual sections of the newspaper, we're tying them to topics we want to cover particularly well."

Reporters can now be shifted from one area to another. For example, the business section just lost its real estate journalist to the neighborhood section. The sports section is divided into professional and "everything else," especially outdoor sports that Seattle area residents enjoy. Articles from arts and metro could end up being printed in the business section, according to business editor Margaret Santjer.

The newsroom also added four assistant managing editor positions and made its physical structure more open by knocking down office walls.

It also began a "Web first" initiative through which reporters post breaking news on the paper's growing website before the article is ready for the print edition. Additionally, reporters have been assigned to produce only breaking news for the web and blogs and forums are soon to follow connecting the paper more closely with its community.

Source: MSNBC