Deborah Wenger of the University of Mississippi looked at what the top US news companies were looking for in new hires.

In her presentation at the Future of Journalism conference in Cardiff, she outlined what skills and attributes were mentioned in job listings.

They found 715 job postings. In newspapers, a third of them for reporters and just 12% for web writers/multimedia producers.

In postings for reporter positions, the most common skill was previous professional experience and strong writing. Around half cited web and multimedia skills.

On the TV side, the most common job posting was producer, around 20% and under 10% of postings for web writer/multimedia producer.

For broadcast, previous experience and strong writing were both highly desirable attributes. But missing from the top five attributes in broadcast were web/multimedia skills.

Web skills were the highly important for newspapers but not in broadcast, found Wenger.

But there are signs of change. For example, Gannett has developed a set of reporter expectations, which included covering breaking stories for multiple platforms, regardless of the type of job.

Overall, Wenger concluded, traditional skills like strong writing and working to tight deadlines remain important to US news employees.