News writers 'considering SEO'

Journalists are becoming increasingly responsible for considerations such as search engine optimisation (SEO), an expert has commented.

David Dunkley Gyimah, an integrated multimedia video journalist, senior university lecturer and council member of the Broadcast Journalism Training Council, made his comments to Evan Fell of the Editors Weblog.

He said journalists are becoming responsible for skills which would normally be spread through a team and are becoming masters "of all trades".

"Journalists are having to think like graphic designers, motion graphic artists, action scripters, SEO analysts," Mr Dunkley Gyimah argued.

Last year, the New York Times interviewed Michael Schudson, a journalism professor at the University of California, who said using SEO tactics within an article is appropriate to the "age of the internet".

He likened SEO to presenting printed stories attractively or using attention-grabbing headlines, saying that could also be considered a marketing device designed to "bring readers to your story".