Are you wondering whether you should integrate your print and online newsrooms? Or maybe you're trying to discover the most effective way of boosting your content's standings on search engines? Does the term "mojo" mean anything to your reporters? Have your readers come knocking at your door, asking you to open up your website to their comments? Do you wonder what strategies your colleagues around the world are adopting for multimedia success?

The answers to these and many more questions can be found in Trends in Newsrooms 2008, the fourth annual report from the World Editors Forum. Trends in Newsrooms is the world’s only complete, analytical guide to the monumental transformations taking place in the newspaper industry. From integrated to non-integrated newsrooms, citizen journalism to social media and multimedia training to mobile journalists, Trends in Newsrooms has everything you need to know to direct your paper towards a multimedia future.

To begin, Trends in Newsrooms includes the Newsroom Barometer 2008, the second annual survey of newspaper editors from around the world organized by The World Editors Forum, Zogby and Reuters. Over 700 editors responded to questions about how new media is affecting journalism and how their newsrooms are adapting.

Looking 10 years into the future, what do you think
will be the most common way of reading news

Each of the following eight chapters includes an introduction summarizing the steps newspapers need to take in adapting to the changing media landscape, including a list of key developments that editors should share with their staff. These developments, as well as a wealth of information including interviews with top media executives, detailed descriptions of innovations at the world’s most recognized papers, and studies of paradigm-shifting Internet companies, are investigated in-depth within the text of each chapter.

Chapter 1: Change your newsroom's culture before changing your newsroom
Chapter 2: Non-integrated newsrooms: separation with cooperation
Chapter 3: Complete multimedia convergence: the modernization of the printed word
Chapter 4: Training print journalists for the multimedia newsroom
Chapter 5: Invite your audience into your newsroom
Chapter 6: Online video breaks the print mold
Chapter 7: Move with your audience: go mobile
Chapter 8: Fusion design: the top print and website designs, 2006-2007

Topic-specific boxes dig even further into prevalent issues and offer expert advice. Conclusions to chapters include debates between top industry movers and shakers as well as case studies of exemplary papers from which all can learn. For example:

- Debate: Spanish newsrooms: to integrate or not to integrate? With Arsenio Escolar, Director, 20 Minutos; Mario Tascon, Director General, Prisacom/El Pais; Fernando Baeta, Director, elmundo.es

- In-depth: The keywords of convergence: conviction, communication and culture change, with Guillermo Franco, Online Editor, Colombia’s El Tiempo; Ralph Gage, Director of Special Projects, Kansas’ The World Company/Lawrence Journal World; Per Lyngby, Editor-in-Chief, Denmark’s Nordjyske Medier

- Training applied: building the integrated newsroom at the Lancashire Evening Post, by Jane B. Singer, Johnston Press Chair in Digital Journalism, University of Central Lancashire

- The Bakersfield Californian: UGC enriches the community, by Mike Jenner, Executive Editor and Vice President, The Bakersfield Californian

Trends in Newsrooms 2008 is based on the best postings from the Editors Weblog (www.editorsweblog.org), a publication of WEF that tracks the daily innovations in newspapers around the world. The report’s articles not only include a history of best practices and analysis, but also suggestions for editors grappling with new media.

We hope the report informs and motivates you and your staff to transform your newsroom into a genuine multiplatform newspaper. Please do not hesitate to send us your feedback.