The New York Times and USA Today began the process of merging their print and online newsrooms in 2005, a trend which will surely accelerate in 2006. Online is no longer looked at as a complement of print and many newspapers have realized that simply re-publishing print articles on the Web does not suffice.

The challenge to newsrooms in 2006 will be to eliminate the line dividing the two newsrooms while simultaneously preserving their distinct features. Journalists will be trained storytellers across both media and will work in teams to produce a complete journalistic package including multimedia and investigative texts.

Ultimately, merging the print and online newsrooms will result in new and more creative forms of journalism.

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2. Threats against investigative journalism growing

With 2,000 lay-offs in the American newspaper industry including around 600 journalists, 2005 was certainly a terrible year in the US. But the trend was similar in the UK and in France and other continental newspapers have barely maintained their level of employment.

But at the same time, newspapers have developed entertainment and lifestyle pages or new supplements dedicated to tourism or luxury. It would be interesting to compare what was a newsroom in the 80’s and today, but some trends are clear:
-    less foreign correspondents
-    less staff at the foreign and political desks
-    more people in the lifestyle and entertainment sections.
But this evolution cannot be condemned because newspapers followed a general trend: considering their readers also as consumers.

The main problem appears with the latest wave of lay-offs: newspapers threaten their core activity of investigative journalism (not only major scoops, but reporting on what happens in different communities.

The basic requirement for a newspaper is to be a watchdog of the government, the town hall and big corporations. If your staff is not able to report about what is wrong in your country or your county, you loose your credibility… and immediately after, your business.

Investigative journalism is badly damaged by incessant waves of lay-offs. One day, there is a point of no return for your core activity and that day is not so far off.

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The loss of credibility and public trust of newspapers emphasized by the anonymous source dilemma in the United States and cases of failure in adequately covering important stories, has led to a call for more transparency in the editorial process.

In the wake of the Judith Miller/CIA leak saga and government pundit payola, newspapers have established ombudsman, guidelines for explaining the reason for an unnamed source have been written, and several papers have opened up their editorial meetings to the public.

In 2006, more newspapers should use blogs and Internet interaction to learn what the public really wants to hear, not merely what they think it should. In this way, newspapers will regain their status of veracity and people will be more likely to buy the paper, be it in print or online.

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4. Breaches appearing in the free news ideology

TimesSelect, the 2005 initiative of the New York Times was passionately debated. Apart from a handful of papers, notably the Wall Street Journal, it was the first time that a major newspaper decided that readers would have to pay for accessing a part of its content (mainly op-ed pages for $50 per year). With around 350,000 subscribers, the paper is far from its objective of one million, but it was the first time that a publisher frankly said «news is not free and its cost cannot be only covered by online advertising ».

What is interesting here is that it represents a major breach in the free news ideology. In numerous American media think tanks and blogs, it was difficult to find someone defending the idea that this « free news bible » was a long-term suicide for news organisations: how can you maintain enough staff in the newsrooms if your revenues diminish every year?

It is the reason why the NYT Sulzberger initiative is welcome. It is just « bon sens » when you see that millions of people are paying for their mobile phone or their cable TV or Sirius radio subscriptions! There was the same free download ideology about music until Apple changed everything with iTunes.

If TimesSelect, however, is to become truly successful, it is likely that the New York Times will split it up into more specific topics. As of now, the package includes the paper’s op-ed staff, some New York City region columnists, select business commentators, sports writers and International Herald Tribune journalists, not to mention online chats with some of the staff and archives. Some consumers may not be willing to pay the $50 because it is too general. But if NYT offered more targeted packages that allowed readers to access only articles of personal interest for a lower price, it may find that more people are willing to pay.

Just another regret: TimesSelect cannot be really successful because it is based on a few articles of the same newspaper. WEF is convinced that the only possibility to develop online payments for news requires new partnerships between traditional competitors. Readership would be ten times more developed if the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune and The Miami Herald could join their efforts and propose a global service of op-ed pages. Same thing, for instance, in France with Le Monde, Le Figaro, Liberation, Les Echos and La Tribune.
 
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