"In the world of web 2.0 you have to go where people are and where they're interacting," Kevin Anderson, Guardian.co.uk blogs editor, told participants at the Digital Editors Network (DEN) meeting, as he explained his roadtrip covering the US Presidential elections.
Armed with a Nokia N82 with GPS, Anderson Twittered, Flickr-ed and mapped his journey across the states as part of an 'experiment with highly distributed content' for the paper's US08 coverage.
Costs
Two months of travel and reporting cost £9,000, showing the benefits of embracing low-cost technology, said Anderson.
"Instead of cutting staff we [the media] should look at disrupting our own business model. I care about journalism and I'll undercut my own costs," he said.
"News organisations really need to look at the ease of use of web 2.0 tools. Instead of being seen as a burden by online journalists, they would be seen as liberating.
"We all need to get better at saying, this is what's possible and this is what I learned. We need to be at a constant state of learning, because that's the only way we innovate."
Innovation
Despite the innovative nature of his US election coverage, Anderson said there are still obstacles to using online tools for journalism at both the Guardian and more widely in the news industry.
"It's not knowing a particular tool, it's knowing the art of the possible," he told delegates.
Titles should take on programmers and encourage journalists to work with them, he said, adding that there were more programmers with journalistic sensibilities than journalist-programmers at the Guardian.
Working with programmers will help journalists realise what tools make possible, though this should not mean outsourcing digital journalism to programming staff, Anderson added.
The Guardian will launch its developers network, the equivalent of the BBC's Backstage, Anderson said, in early March.
Community
While the US08 reporting was successful, it was important for the paper not to neglect the online community it had built after the event, said Anderson.
The Guardian, for example, has added 'Tweet the People' - a daily news question - to its US Twitter account, he explained.
"So many times as a journalist we stop covering an event when it's over. Events are a good thing to focus the mind and try new things," he said.
"We've built this community. The biggest disasters we're making with social media right now is turning our back on people."
See Journalism.co.uk's coverage from DEN and the Journalism Leaders Forum event at this link.
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