Despite the multitude of changes in the approach to news delivery, a facet of newsgathering remains the same, regional newspaper editors and executives said at an industry conference.

Shorthand is a "core skill" for journalists, and essential for fast-breaking online news, Manchester Evening News editor Paul Horrocks said at the NCTJ skills conference on Friday.
Lancashire Evening Post editorial director Simon Reynolds said that the frequently updated and "rolling nature" of online news puts renewed pressure on journalists to file quickly.

The core skill, editors said, has been "lost," with many trainee journalists using verbatim note taking instead of shorthand while reporting. The result, Johnston Press group editorial executive David Rowell said, is that reporters will be preoccupied with getting everything down rather than "listening and understanding." That is a trend, Rowell said, that the industry should reevaluate.

64% of newspaper editors consider shorthand to be an "extremely important" skill, an NCTJ survey found, and most were willing to train journalists. The "gold standard," according to Press Gazette, is 100 words per minute.

Source: Press Gazette