Journalism is, and always will be, at the core of a news organisation. But today and increasingly in the future, it is important for to have six main competencies to survive and thrive in a new media environment, Steven Duke, managing director of training and associate professor of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, told the World Editors Forum study tour today.

Those competencies are: Platform strategist, marketer, community builder, data miner, complete storyteller and entrepreneur, he said.

Platform Strategist

The skills of a platform strategist include:
1. Know the platforms, technologies and players.
2. Know the consumer.
3. Know the organisation.

These skills will allow the strategist to meet the needs of every screen, capture new market opportunities, offer content when the consumer wants it and explore new platforms, Duke said.

Marketer

The marketer's skills are:
1. Differentiate on content.
2. Differentiate on opinion.

These skills will allow the marketer to give the news organisation a strong brand position, he said. For example, Google's brand stands for "search," Disney's brand stands for "family fun," and CNN.com's brand stands for "breaking news." For a publication like The Atlanta Journal Constitution, for example, the newspaper's brand stands for "knows Atlanta best."

A marketer will be able to recapture the brand's position and use new tools to find audiences.

Community Builder

How do you tap into peoples' passions as a news organisation? Tap into triggers and passions, he said.

The skills of a community builder are:
1. Driving collaboration: involve others in reporting and sharing news, and hold communities together and aggregate around interests.
2. Employing micro-segmentation: target those similar interests.

People want to connect and share, and when a news organisation helps those in the community do that, it further cements its place within the community. Getting in the market first, and building a community around a common passion, like parenting or a sports team, is key, he explained.

Data Miner

Technology makes for richer information of individuals and groups. A data miner is able to:
1. Use technology efficiently: collect, receive and store data.
2. Become an expert at customization.
3. Generate new revenue streams: package information in interesting ways.

Data is ubiquitous and cheap, but the ability to analyse and utilise that data is scarce. That's where news organisations come in, he said.

Complete Storyteller

Storytelling is increasingly visual, and thinking visually will enable journalists to better tell stories across multiple platforms, which better engages people and brings understanding to them, Duke said.

The skills of a storyteller are:
1. Providing rich content.
2. Creating interactivity.
3. Visualisation of information and design.

Young readers want news and information to be well organised, and easy to find. An overall trend, when talking to teenagers, is that currently, news homepages are overwhelming. Basically, they want simpler homepages, but with news judgement and information that helps them understand the top news. Basically, they want an editor to determine hierarchy, he said.

For inside pages and news past the homepage, they want enough news to help them gain understanding, in a clean, uncluttered way, with an option to get more information to get more depth. People want understanding, but not everyone is a news junky, Duke explained.

Entrepreneur

Basically, news organisations must figure out what consumers want, and what they are willing to pay for, he said.

The skills necessary to continue entrepreneurship are:
1. Creating partnerships.
2. Experimentation.
3. New revenue models.