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Online Journalism News

World's editors examine newsroom challenges

Posted: 27/04/06 By: Jemima Kiss
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The World Editors' Forum (WEF) has published its second annual 'Trends in newsrooms' report, which explores developments in citizen journalism, the threat from internet companies and how newspapers can increase interactivity with their readers.

The document features summaries of the forum's Editors' Weblog which monitors developments in newspaper publishing, and includes analysis on changing content in the digital age from 'We media' author Dan Gillmor, Topix.net co-founder Rich Skrenta and Times editor Robert Thomson.

Philip Meyer, author of 'The vanishing newspaper', and media commentator Roy Greenslade debate the next 10 years for newspapers in the report's introduction.

The report is free to WEF members and 139 Euros (£96) to non-members.

• Dan Gillmor's own citizen media project Bayosphere.com is joining the Backfence network, a similar project based in Washington DC. In an open letter to readers last week, Gillmor said the deal would relieve him financially and would encourage Bayosphere's San Francisco-based community to expand within the Backfence network.

"One of the lessons I learned in 2005, when we were all exploring some new ideas about bottom-up media, was that we didn't have sufficient focus on the Bay Area," he wrote.

"Although our conversations about Big Issues were interesting, they ultimately may not have served us as well as the ones where we had a personal and more immediate stake in the situation. There are hundreds of places where we can beat each other up about Iraq and Bush. There are relatively few where we can help each other through the daily travails and joys of our communities."