News Ltd’s Australian editors have just finished two days of meetings at Surry Hills, during which one subject was uppermost: the “integrated newsroom”.

Editors from all the metropolitan dailies (though strangely no one from regionals such as Cairns, Townsville and Darwin, and no-one from the suburban chains that operate in the capitals) with assorted hangers-on (Andrew Bolt etc) wrestled with putting Rupert Murdoch’s latest imperative into practice: embracing the internet.

The idea is for News reporters to file stories immediately to their papers’ websites, just a quick grab, then rewrite as necessary during the day, then file a full version for next day’s paper. This is planned to be developed over time into reporters with camcorders filing sound and vision to the website from the courts, parliament, the street demonstration, the fatal road accident and the like.

No news reporters will be employed to write solely for print. (Columnists, feature writers, reviewers and so on will continue to write only for print.) They will be inculcated in “website first, paper second”.

The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance has already started asking questions about shifts, allowances for extra work, retraining etc. News is also going to have to deal with the problem of hurriedly “legalling” stories on sensitive subjects and court reports before they go live.

But … Rupert wants to embrace the internet, so embrace it is.