To cover the elections in Afghanistan on August 20, El Paí­s sent special correspondent Ramón Lobo to Kabul. In addition to articles featured in the print edition of the paper, Lobo kept a blog on the El Paí­s site documenting daily life in the country called Cuadernos de Kabul (Logs from Kabul). Writing on his personal blog following the experience, the journalist offered his views on covering both media for the same publication and the future of news as a whole.

According to Lobo, this was the first time that El Paí­s had experimented with parallel reporting for the newspaper and its website. He found the dual role somewhat exhausting but at the same time very rewarding. Lobo claims the print edition brings together facts and news from all of the organization's correspondents that show stories from many angles while transmitting information and giving context to various news events. In contrast, Cuadernos de Kabul offers snippets of daily life on topics like the traffic in Kabul and "children who want to be doctors."

On the digital side, Lobo found his role gave him "marvelous liberty," because he did not have to worry about space constraints. That is certainly one advantage of the Internet over printed newspapers, which must fill a limited number of pages with an entire day's worth of news. Lobo hopes his Kabul log will be expanded to include photos and videos, another benefit of its presence online.

Though he believes the Internet presents exciting opportunities for news, Lobo does not think newspapers will disappear completely. For him, a newspaper's website goes hand in hand with a strong paper edition. Lobo is convinced that the newspapers that do survive will be the ones that continue to provide quality content in the form of exclusives, insightful interviews, strong reporting, analysis and opinion.

It is not surprising that a newspaper veteran like Lobo would continue to have faith in print. However, he has also clearly embraced the role of the Internet in reporting a story. Lobo's log presents a new way of looking at a story that every news outlet has covered. It is also a perfect example of extra content newspapers can offer to online readers, one for which people might pay in the future.

Source: En la boca del lobo