Washington Post: A Newspaper Chain Sees Its Future, And It’s Online and Hyper-Local — Gannett is testing mobile journalists — reporters with laptops, digital audio recorders and cameras — who spend their days traveling around their cities filing stories for the web, and sometimes the print editions, too. The journalist’s goal is to generate fresh content throughout the day for the web and push the publication’s focus to more local coverage. In Fort Myers, Fla., Gannett expects to have 30 mobile journalists on staff by the end of 2007 — all working without offices. The Fort Myers
News-Press has also turned to citizen experts, such as retired city officials, to help with investigations. While the paper’s print circulation has fallen, traffic to its web site has more than doubled in the past year.
This is a follow-up to Gannett’s news experiement.