By many accounts, the newspaper industry faces the biggest crisis in its history. The myriad of alternative media outlets competing for consumer eyes and advertising dollars has pulled the rug out from under newspaper publishers' bottom line. The once liberal flow of money to newsgathering operations, the core of any newspaper, has been drastically reduced.

Fortunately, newsrooms around the world are adapting to this gloomy picture in ways never before imagined and with little financial investment. Cost-concious editors are finding innovative ways to streamline the news process, saving time and resources while increasing editorial quality. Journalists are adopting free new media tools to dig up information more quickly and discover more exciting stories. Cheap consumer technologies are helping newsrooms to invent multimedia storytelling techniques that appeal to ever-changing audience desires.

Trends in Newsrooms 2009 is your complete guide to the best of these new journalism practices. From restructuring floor plans to managing stories across platforms, taking advantage of Twitter to bumping up your Google rankings, this definitive annual media survey from the World Editors Forum will teach you all the strategies you need to know and inspire you to reenergize and educate your newsroom to succeed in the new media revolution.   

Each of the report's 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: Integrated Newsrooms: evolutions and revolutions
Chapter 2: Newspapers in Crisis – how newsrooms wheel through hard times
Chapter 3: Journalists of the digital age: the newsroom’s new positions
Chapter 4: Use visual journalism for new narrative forms
Chapter 5: Pure players and personalized news: the end of mass media?

Chapter 6: From user-generated content to participatory journalism
Chapter 7: Digital delivery platforms of the future
Chapter 8: Top print and web designs

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: The world's top editors discuss the advantages and disadvantages of integrating print and digital operations within newspaper newsrooms

- Opinion: Can newspapers do more with less? Newspaper expert and consultant Phil Stone of Follow the Media argues that to survive in the digital age, newspapers must charge for digital content not only to bring in much needed revenues, but to protect their invaluable content.

- How-To: What are the best ways to implement video in newspaper newsrooms? New media expert and CEO of VisualEditors Robb Montgomery takes readers through some of the world's best online video experiments and gives editors practical advice about how video is best used on the Web.

- Case-study: An in-depth look at the UK's Trinity Mirror Regionals merger of three newspapers into one, fully-converged multimedia newsroom.

Trends in Newsrooms 2009 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 to face down the newspaper crisis. Please send us your thoughts, comments and suggestions so that we can improve the report in future years.

John Burke, World Editors Forum Deputy Director

Jean Yves Chainon, Editors Weblog Editor-in- Chief

Bertrand Pecquerie, World Editors Forum Director