Digital tipping point: The balance of priority between traditional and digital journalism skills at local UK newspapers

A recruitment advertisement shines a light on what an organisation is looking for not only in a new employee, but also in existing staff members. It projects the values, aims and direction of an organisation, reflecting ambitions that may not be fully representative of the existing reality. In the turbulent UK local newspaper industry there has been a sea change in methods of collecting, reporting and, from the audience perspective, consuming the news. However, until recently, studies have found traditional reporting skills are prized more highly than online skills by newspaper managers. Working to the hypothesis that this will have changed, with digital media skills being equally, if not more, desired than traditional journalistic skills, this paper assesses the language of recruitment advertisements for local newspaper journalist roles on www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk from November 2014 to January 2015. Using a set of ‘traditional’ keywords and a set of ‘digital’ keywords, the priority of their use and the tone of their delivery will show the corporate ideal being projected. In turn, this will demonstrate the desired state of the individual titles, their mother companies and the industry as a whole.