Here are 10 things every journalists should know in 2013.
1. It's all about skills, skills, skills
Aron Pilhofer, editor of interactive news at the New York Times, has one piece of advice for journalists wanting to get ahead: "Skills, skills, skills, skills, skills, skills."
"Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, it is just not enough any more to just be able to turn a phrase, or do the traditional kinds of reporting," he told Journalism.co.uk. "You need to be a little bit of a jack of all trades; you need to be able to shoot and cut video or do audio or code or do data analysis," he said.
"And it's even more important now than it ever has been in this shrinking industry to have those kinds of skills."
Steve Herrmann, editor of BBC News online, agrees. He looks for those with skills in social media, data journalism and with "an ability to appreciate the importance of still pictures, of video, graphics and audio in communicating and telling stories".
"It's not necessarily being expert in all of those things," Herrmann said, "but being aware of their importance and appreciating when they can be really effective and have impact."
9. Online journalism is mobile first
Mobile is an important traffic driver for news sites, we are regularly reminded. At particular times of the day the Guardian's mobile traffic exceeds desktop traffic; on an average weekday 24 per cent of readers of BBC News access via mobile, with that rising to a record of 30 per cent on the day of the US election last November, the BBC Editors' blog reported. And more than a third of New York Times traffic now comes from phones and tablets, according to this post by Martin Belam.
But while some sites have a mobile first strategy when thinking about how to present data visualisations, features and multimedia, many journalists have desktop in mind when creating the story.
In a presentation at December's news:rewired digital journalism conference, Belam said: "Think reader before editor. Think software before content. Think simplicity before features. Think mobile before desktop."
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