Guardian News & Media names Wolfgang Blau digital strategy director, The Guardian

Wolfgang Blau, currently editor of Die Zeit online, will be the Guardian’s new digital strategy director, starting in April 2013. He has been tasked with "creating and tailoring content for digital with a view to maximising revenue and audience," the paper said. One interesting point about the appointment is that in contrast to the Guardian’s highly integrated approach, at Die Zeit Blau has championed keeping the print and online versions of the paper as independent entities. There is only a six percent overlap between print and digital, he said in May. What elements of this experience will he bring to the Guardian?

Robert Steiner: In Toronto, we’re dumping the j-school model to produce a new kind of reporter, Nieman Lab

As part of Nieman Lab’s series on journalism education, Robert Steiner, director of the Fellowships in Global Journalism at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs, writes about his model: “turning experts into journalists rather than journalists into experts.” The Fellowship programme recruits both academics and professionals and teaches them to break news in their own disciplines. “They don’t get a degree; they don’t need another degree:” but what the programme gives them is the chance to communicate effectively on topics that journalists might not have sufficient expertise in. Given concerns about how sensitive scientific issues such as climate change are reported, or financial journalism following the global crisis of 2008, maybe this is an initiative which could be adopted more widely.