Two editors, two views. Observer editor Roger Alton, asked by the Independent on Sunday if he is excited by the digital future, replies: "No. I get excited by newspapers more. Significantly, for a large amount of our future, this is the platform that matters... Clearly, elements of what Will Lewis [editor of the Daily Telegraph] says are right, but if everybody's having to do everything all the time, there's a problem about the paper."
Then, in Alton's own paper today there's an interview with Lewis explaining his commitment to multi-platform journalism by saying: "If you aren't doing this it's already too late... We are following the reader, and they are moving pretty rapidly into new places. Everyone who's not started this process - they're already dead."
On the other hand, when Alton is asked if his journalists will be doing vodcasts in the next few years, he replies: "Yes, of course they will." And Lewis insists that none of the digital "experimentation" blinds him to the fact that the newspaper "remains the core product."
Who's right? I'm certainly with Lewis on his pioneering of multi-platform journalism (though I don't think the laggards are already dead). Alton is reflecting every traditional newspaper worker's viewpoint, but he can afford to thumb his nose at the future because he is cushioned by his newspaper group's inexorable move towards integration.
