10 new roles for journalists

New roles will be necessary in editorial organizations. Here are 10 of them, provided by the Swedish media blog Mindpark.

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Since the original posting is written in Swedish, I have decided to reblog the whole list from Mindpark in English for international readers.

Their main point is that tougher competition for media companies will force journalists to work in new ways. Here are the possible new roles editors should consider introducing in the editorial staff:

1. Search editor. An increasing portion of a site’s traffic comes from Google and other search engines. You need a person to follow this traffic closely.
2. Statistics editor. The web provides numerous opportunities to follow users behavior on your site closely.
3. Project editor. Many media companies seem to be much quicker to launch new project on paper than on the web. Why is that?
4. Link editor. Whoever links the most, will win in the end. But someone has to be responsible for the linking policy and activities.
5. Community editor. Being present in reader’s activities on our sites as well as outreaching to communities on other sites.
6. Network editor/ conversation editor. Picking up and responding to discussions about your brand on other sites.
7. Tag editor. Developing and maintaining tag structure. Most media companies are not very sophisticated in this regard.
8. Mashup editor. Including widgets and mashups on your site.
9. Web quality editor. Making sure the media site lives up to the new quality requirements on the web as well as incorporating new trends.
10. Internet editor. Covering what is happening on the web. Even local papers should do this!

That’s the list.  I think Mindpark has done a great job in identifying some of the new roles of editors and journalists.

Do you have any suggestions for other roles which should be on the list?

Tagged as: community, Google, journalism, media, search, social media, web