(Vivian Vahlberg)

The pendulum continues to swing regarding the question of whether it's better to have print and online newsrooms together or separate. In the beginning, many organizations decided it was better to be separate, so inertia and the heavy weight of "the way we've always done things" wouldn't slow things down. More recently, many news organizations have moved toward integration of print and online newsrooms.

One of the highest-profile integrators is the New York Times. In his remarks to the World Association of Newspapers' conference in London, Neil Chase, Director of the Continuous News Desk at The Times, agreed with Melonie Hall that building trust and changing entrenched behaviors are critical.

Print and online aren't yet fully integrated by any means at the Times, but Chase outlined 10 steps the Times has taken to make it happen:

1. Build a front page even a journalist can love. For The Times, that meant building a website whose inspiration comes from the paper, from its strengths and its values.
2. Find new ways to highlight the work of journalists, including creating personal pages highlighting the journalists, making bylines really big, featuring video clips of reporters talking about their stories and creating 10,000 new websites that give extended life to the Times' reporting by gathering by topic the Times' collected reporting on key issues.
3. Be there. Physically. Chase said he couldn't emphasize enough how important it is for Web producers to by near where editors and reporters are. The Times is working toward this goal, which will be met in the Times' new building.
4. Don't assign print journalists to Web work; invite them. One of the biggest fears of print journalists is they will be required to do everything and what they are good at will suffer. So Chase said the online operation asks print journalists what they might like to do online, what they see other papers doing that they wish the Times could do, how they would like to be able to tell a story. He said this has led to great ideas and considerable involvement. Print photographers have been a particular asset; many of them had already been carrying and experimenting with video cameras before they were even asked.
5. Follow your specialties and develop your natural franchises (like technology in San Jose or race cars in Indianapolis). Be the best online at what you're really good at.
6. Use the web to answer obvious questions people have – to dig deeper to show specifically what a story means to an individual reader, to let them hear or see what is being written about.
7. Don't lie about the workload; be realistic about the time it takes.
8. Don't make reporters do extra work; help them by capturing URLs for them, getting original documents, audio or video, or taking care of updates while they're doing the main story.
9. Make it easy for them to contribute and offer training. Don't seek to make print people experts on new media; just help them become proficient.
10. Create ways to involve readers directly with journalists.

What do you think? Please share your thoughts, experiences and reactions by clicking on the comment button below or by e-mailing me at v-vahlberg@northwestern.edu.