How many of your colleagues know the names and locations of the new media/online journalism staff members at your paper?

And where are your new media people located? At many newspapers, if not most, they are off to the side somewhere — often out of sight, out of mind. Few newspapers integrate their Web producers, editors and developers into the newsroom. Many people tell me they don’t even know where their online staffers sit or their names.

Honestly, can you blame them if they are tucked away somewhere far from the rest of the editorial staff?

That’s not a good way to demonstrate the important of the Web to established print staffers. It creates a divide that ultimately hurts readers and papers. This divide often causes several issues.

1. Having online staffers be apart of the newsroom sends a powerful message about the importance of the Web to a paper’s success. Don’t underestimate this.
2. If your online team is off by itself, print staff members won’t be as apt to consider the Web when covering stories or producing features. Every big story package can benefit exponentially from having Web staffers in at the beginning.
3. Online members often feel left out and looked down on by the print staffers. This perception is never helped when the online staff is stuck by the marketing or business staff or cleaning staff or some random closet.
4. Without an integrated newsroom, a news organization will never, ever have a real continuous news desk, which is one of the biggest features users want.

The online team at my paper has never been in the newsroom with the print staffers. This has caused most staff members to think of our online presence as a mere after thought — if they think of it at all. It probably has even caused some to not consider us real members of the editorial team. This is set to change early next year, and should have a tremendous impact on our product and how we cover news.

Our readers will benefit tremendously from the increased collaboration, and it will send a strong message to the rest of the newsroom staff. Yes, some organizations like The Washington Post even have separate buildings for their print and online staffs, but they are an outlier. The Post is one of the best news organizations in the world, and WashingtonPost.com and Washington Post-Newsweek Interactive are filled with tremendously talented managers — albeit in Virginia instead of D.C. with the print staff.

Plus, the Post gets a lot of collaboration between it staffs, because it is a company that has been a big proponent of the Web for years. A much better example is the Post’s big northern rival, The New York Times. The Times just moved into a new building, with an integrated newsroom (watch this video that explains it). Editors say it has had a tremendous impact already, and having online staffers mixed with print staffers allows a much more organic process for creating news in the 21st century.

It’s just a lot easier for collaboration, which is the name of the game.

I’d like to get some feedback on how your paper’s or other paper’s you have seen do things.