***Italics are my commentary*** 

User-generated content: When asked about the Post's policy on material created by readers, Chandrasekaran pointed to the Post's blogs where readers are allowed to comment and said that the Post is opening up some articles to comments. In the wake of the December row over a problematic column by the Post's ombudsman in which many readers posted violent remarks, Chandrasekaran emphasized that the Post had to be careful in monitoring the comments.

Perhaps he also should have mentioned the Post's mashup project, where readers are allowed to take WaPo content from its website and mix and match it with other content to create their own.

Staying up-to-the-minute: Yes, continuous news means more work for Post reporters since many now have to write a quick piece for the Web when the news breaks and follow up with a more detailed article for the print edition (which is eventually printed on the website as well). Many stories that appear on the website in the evening are what's going to be on the following day's front page.

It's this problem between the immediacy of the Internet and the reflexive characteristics of print that have led some pundits to declare that newspapers will scale back their print editions to fewer times in the week and publish more in-depth, analytical articles about events that are broken on the web. It's also not going to help WaPo journalists burdened with more work that the paper just trimmed its newsroom staff by 80.

The role of blogs: Chandrasekaran distinguished between the Post's two types of blogs; news and opinion. Stories that are printed on news blogs are expected to maintain the same standard of "fairness and objectivity" as a normal news story. Opinion blogs are for, well, opinion.

Some have suggested that journalists use blogs to publish drafts of articles that the public can pick apart, as well as a tool for finding ledes submitted by readers. As for opinion, with the rise of such a useful tool, it wouldn't be surprising if one day all newspaper opinion is written in a blog format and that the original article will the starting line for a lively conversation between readers. This would be a wise move by newspapers in keeping readers on their website instead of having them discuss the same article elsewhere where articles are heavily excerpted and the hosts earn advertising revenue instead of the paper.  

Editing: The Post still edits its stories thoroughly before posting them on the Internet but Chandrasekaran admits that it's a different process; the time allotment between print and online journalism is significantly different, online journalists and editors obviously having less time to work on a story.

Some would say that this difference in time doesn't matter too much. Readers will understand the pressure on a news organization to post stories on the Web asap and will usually forgive minor mistakes in reporting and editing. Furthermore, these minor mistakes will normally be corrected by knowledgeable readers who write to the staff. Still, if a paper makes a large error, chances are the audience won't be so lenient. 

What's the status of an online reader? One reader wanted to know since he checks the website one or two times a day but hasn't read the printed version for years if he can still be considered a regular Post reader. Chandrasekaran responded that he also reads the Post online but pleaded for readers to buy the "dead-tree copy now and then. We could use the help in propping up circulation. Sure, we make money off of the ads on the Web site, but we still ink-on-paper readers to make ends meet!"

This shows the precarious divide between the print, which is losing readers but still the main source of revenue, and online, which is gaining readers but not even close to making up for print advertising revenues. We are all hoping that newspapers will be able to weather the storm during the transition to digital as online advertising grows, a storm that by some accounts is going to last at least 10 years.

Source: Washingtonpost.com