For the first time in the Washington Post’s history they are bringing in outside help to redesign their Web site.

The redesign is supposed to be the biggest in the history of the Post. The current Post design isn’t nearly as solid as The New York Times or CNN. It just doesn’t flow well. Take a look at the homepage versus the national news page. There is no synergy between those pages.

Why doesn’t the national news page look and act more like the homepage? That’s what the Post is hoping to tackle with this latest redesign. Brady told Editor and Publisher:

“It is bigger than any other [redesign] since building it in the first place,” Brady says about his site, which first launched in 1996. “We are trying to fill it with the strategies we’ve emphasized the past few years — reader engagement, multi-media and providing useful data bases for our readers.”

It’s interesting that the Post of all companies, with it’s large Web staff, is bringing in outside help. If the Post needs to bring in outside help, almost every other paper might need to as well. But outside help only works if you hire good help.

Mediocre or bad Web design companies are a waste of your money and time. The Post will be working with The Wonder Factor of New York — a company with a huge roster of big-name clients. The Wonder Factor recently redesigned Newsweek (another Post property) and National Geographic.

Newsweek is an infinity better looking and navigable Web site than what the Post currently has. I haven’t spent enough time at the redesigned newsweek.com to do a full review, but I like what I see so far.

I’ll be real with everyone for a second: Almost every newspaper Web site sucks, even the so-called good ones. My newspaper’s site sucks, your’s sucks and your friend’s sucks.

And instead of sucking forever, maybe we should partner with people who don’t suck. I’m just saying, sometimes it’s fun not to suck. Sometimes it’s fun to make products that people want (AKA our readers and users).

The best designed journalism Web site is probably CNN.com, and I have yet to see a newspaper adopt CNN’s incredible easy to use and navigate minimalist Web 2.0 approach. Now if CNN just had better content, they’d really be in business.

Would your paper be open to having outside help? And, more importantly, would they pay for good help?

Newspapers need to start paying employees extra for each in-demand skill they have.

Other industries do it. For instance, the CIA pays new hires more if they know a critical language like Arabic or Mandarin — tens of thousands more a year. And if you don’t know a critical language, but are willing to learn, the CIA will put you through courses.

Once you reach a certain proficiency, you’ll get paid more. Obviously, most people who join the CIA have certain core skills: knowledge of foreign affairs, strong writing and analytical abilities, ability to pass an in depth background check (many applicants cannot), etc. Most people who apply to the CIA do not know a critical language, which is why the CIA offers big incentives to people who do.

This is exactly what newspapers should do. As much as many people say that all journalists should have online and new media skills, we know that the vast majority do not. That’s fine as long as they have basic reporting skills (basic as in print-only reporting) and a strong grasp of the English language.

But newspapers should pay employees and offer perspective employees incentives to have more than just traditional journalism skill. We could start a reporter out at $30,000 a year if he has basic journalism skills. If that candidate is proficient with CSS and HTML, add $5,000 more on that. If a candidate is proficient with audio and video editing, add another $5,000 (many journalists make less than $30,000 by the way, which is embarrassing and a major reason why there is so little quality journalism).

Flash? $5,000. If existing employees have a problem with this, they should be offered training. If they hit a certain level of proficiency they’ll get the extra $5,000 for each skill. This of course is not happening.

In fact, many employees with these skills are poorly paid and looked down on by “real journalists.” How many papers have talented Web people who are poorly paid and basically only serve to repurpose print content? Far too many.

The reality is that everyone at a newspaper should know how to write. That’s the basic. We need to start paying more for people with additional skills above the standard set.

If journalists knew that each of these skills would net them a higher salary, more would take it upon themselves to learn these skills. Most new media skills aren’t hard to learn. But what’s the real incentive?

Instead of telling people they should learn new skills because the Web is the future or that those people not learning these skill are out of touch, we should do what most real industries do: pay people.

If you haven’t gotten a raise that matches inflation in years, what is your incentive to spend your time and money to learn something new? There is none.

If publishers and top editors expect to get talented and qualified people in the coming years, they’ll have to pay more for people who have more in-demand skills. This also means dramatically rethinking the compensation offered to standard reporters.

Not everyone has the same skills, and not everyone is worth the same to a company. And this whole idea of trying to do more with less is basically waving a white flag. I know I can make more money with my Web skills (and my foreign affairs knowledge) in other industries, and other young Web people like me know the same.

Newspapers are for-profit companies, not charities. So, don’t expect your employees to be charity workers. If you don’t pay your skilled employees properly, they’ll go somewhere else.

And then you’ll really be hurting for money.