Sarah Radford

Sarah Radford was a 2004 graduate on the newspaper diploma course and is an award-winning online journalist for the Newbury Weekly News. Sarah gave a fascinating presentation on the swift developments which have occurred since the website was launched in May 2005.

The Berkshire weekly, founded in 1867, was the first local paper to utilise video stories. As well as this, the Newspaper Society's "Best Weekly Newspaper Internet Site", produce six news stories a day, sport and entertainment. The future plan is to capture a younger audience. A second version of the website in 2006 brought this intention much closer to reality when the paper introduced a lifestyle section and picture galleries.

Today, numerous media companies are looking to re-evaluate their news provisions. The worry among local papers is the lack of young people contributing to their paper. The readership has declined by 1% in the last year and with the next generation seemingly uninterested in papers, a fresh approach is required.

The website VG in Norway uses a successful model of merging web and print journalism together. According to the paper's managing director, Adrian Martin: "This is the way forward."

A website offers updated news and interaction, a major advantage over a paper in a world thirsty for instant communication. Consider the example of the London bombings: Newbury Weekly News is situated in London's commuter belt so although the story was huge on a world scale, it also created a massive local interest. The website could move quickly within hours whereas people in the area would have to wait for the following week's newspaper edition. Furthermore, using a video online can take a story much further than a picture.

As each week passes, it's clear to me that multi-skilled journalists are the future and Sarah supported this by saying everyone in the industry wants to do the same thing. Martin Robertshaw, the website manager, said "If people come to a job interview and are multi-skilled, it will be a happy day."

I must remember to take my camera everywhere then...