Relations with the local community are just as important as subscriptions, Arne Bore continues. Dialogue with readers is one of the most important tasks of the paper.

A lot of the paper’s most valuable content comes from its relationship with its readers, he says, such as:

1. Updates on community news: what’s going on, births, deaths and marriages
2. Unique stories contributed by readers as part of crowd-sourcing efforts
3. Enriched stories that have a "longer tail" as reader contributions allow for updates, and are higher quality when readers supply corrections

What is essential, however, when you open up a channel of communication, is to both listen and respond to readers. “If you are not responding to criticism, it will stand there unanswered,” Arne Bore warns.

It is also necessary to prevent the publication of offensive reader comments, Arne Bore says. “At the start we didn’t have the tools and resources to monitor reader participation,” he says, “and the good stuff wasn’t able to shine through.” Now, Drammens Tidende has introduced a two-tiered commenting system, whereby users must identify themselves, or their comments will be pre-moderated.

There is a fine line to be drawn, however, between filtering out the offensive and setting the bar too high, Arne Bore believes. “We don’t want to become an elitist media platform,” he stresses.

"In Mexico we're having a war," says Rocio Gallegos, a reporter with El Diario de Juarez, a newspaper that issues a challenge in the battle with drug cartels, corruption and chaos. Gallegos was speaking at WAN-IFRA's first Latin America conference in Bogota, Colombia.

El Diario has had two reporters killed by drug cartels, and those who attack, kidnap and murder journalists act with total impunity. The paper drew worldwide attention with an editorial last year addressing the traffickers and asking them, "what do you want from us?"

"It generated controversy because it said that the traffickers were the de facto authorities in the area," Gallegos says. "Some people saw it as a surrender. But the paper said, it's impossible to fulfill our responsibilities under the circumstances. It's not a surrender, just a white flag, because we don't want to lose any more journalists and we want to continue our work."

Sixty-four journalists have been killed in Mexico since 2000 and there hae been untold cases of aggression, armed threats, vandalism and kidnappings. Over 90 percent of the cases have not been solved and the attackers are still at large.