The Transformation of Traditional Roles in the Newspaper's Newsroom: New Functions and Professions

Journalism always responds to various technological novelties and challenges of society. With constant changes and innovations in the media production a lot of employers find it difficult to search for qualified manpower. This paper indicates key problems in labour market of printing press and establishes the skills the newspaper worker should obtain in order to follow the modern newspaper development. Moreover, the problem of convergence in newspaper’s newsroom was systemized. There is also a study of a concept of the “universal journalist” which also changed throughout the development of the printing press industry. This research analyzes job offers from human resource giants such as HeadHunter.ru, SuperJob.ru and Mediajobs.ru. Moreover, editors-in-chief are to be interviewed to determine which jobs need to be reviewed and reconsidered, and which working positions are in demand in a 21st century newspaper. We’ve come up with two main findings. First, newspapers need not only writing journalists but also the “new generation” staff who will meet the needs of technological era (high-educated employees that can operate different technological formats – from photo and video to writing articles). Second, the production standards in the newspapers was reconstructed by convergence.