Interesting read in the Washington Post on how US newspaper chain Gannett is trying to reinvent itself.

From the article:

“Losing readers and revenue to the Internet and other media, newspapers are struggling to stay relevant and even afloat. Gannett’s answer is radical.

The chain’s papers are redirecting their newsrooms to focus on the Web first, paper second. Papers are slashing national and foreign coverage and beefing up “hyper-local,” street-by-street news. They are creating reader-searchable databases on traffic flows and school class sizes. Web sites are fed with reader-generated content, such as pictures of their kids with Santa. In short, Gannett — at its 90 papers, including USA Today — is trying everything it can think of to create Web sites that will attract more readers.”

How is Gannett doing this? By having “mojos” – mobile journalists. They have a laptop, digital audio recorders, digital video and still cameras, spending their time on the road looking for stories, filing to the website several times a day.

As Mindy McAdams says in her blog, it is a brave strategy. The question we don’t know the answer to yet is whether this improves or undermines the quality of the journalism.