So much progress has been made in getting print reporters on board for online, that some newspaper editors say they are overwhelmed with reporters' offers to update, chat, blog, shoot video, and so on for newspaper websites, writes Editor & Publisher. Panelists discussing web/print "convergence" during the E&P/Mediaweek Interactive Media Conference in Las Vegas talked about the transition to "the continuous news desk," or what moderator and E&P Editor Greg Mitchell termed the cliche of the moment, "platform-agnostic news coverage."

Speaking were Kinsey Wilson, executive editor of USA Today; Jim Brady, executive editor at washingtonpost.com, and Rajiv Chandrasekaran, assistant managing editor at the Post in charge of its continuous news desk.

"Reporters want to be on the homepage as much as they want to be in the print edition," Chandrasekaran said. "Not a day goes by when I don't get calls from reporters wanting better play online…. What has developed is a very collaborative relationship between the newspaper and the web."

Among the issues raised was the continuing tendency to hold back scoops until they run in print. Another was the increased workload, for which staffers receive no extra pay; the editors agreed that staffers were freely volunteering left and right to go the extra mile, although some have termed this "coerced volunteerism."