For the second year, the Newsroom Barometer, a survey organized by Reuters and the World Editors Forum and conducted by Zogby International, was presented at the 15th World Editors Forum conference, being held this year in Göteborg, Sweden. The Barometer is an exclusive international survey designed to give insight into newsroom strategies.
The survey represents newspapers throughout the world including international, national, regional and local papers.
John Zogby, President of Zogby International, USA introduced the study. He announced that two of the most important results found in the survey was that newsrooms today need to train journalists to be multimedia oriented for the approaching dominance of integrated newsrooms.
When asked about the multimedia capabilities of their own newsrooms, 54% of survey respondents said that their newsroom is already integrated. Another 30% said that they will have an integrated newsroom within 5 years. But Zogby pointed out that there is no standard definition of what an integrated newsroom actually is, and that this is a discussion that must occur amongst media executives.
The biggest problem for printed newspapers is the declining readership of young people, especially in United States. Linked to this problem, many young people read their news on the Internet.
Despite the seemingly bad news, the survey shows that 85% of editors-in-chiefs around the world are very or somewhat optimistic about the future of newspapers.
George Brock, chairman and Editor, Saturday TImes, UK answered that today headlines repeat themself. "The challenge for us is the generation shift. Young people have new habits and they are not going to change," said Brock. "If we would deliver more depth it might raise their interest level. It's not only the content that needs to change but it's the way we deliver it as well. Chances are if you deliver on YouTube it will reach it's audience."
Brock also said that there is a new generation of adults that have adopted a new set of tools, and they are not going to change.
The general lesson from the session was that publishers have to develop and intergrate all media. Their job is not only finding the right media on which to tell the story but also finding the right media on which to find the audience.

