Much reported elsewhere, but it’s still interesting to read this week that The Guardian plans to file online first in the future.

This is of course the newspaper industry’s much-delayed response to 24-hour broadcasters such as the BBC and Sky News. Listen to what the paper’s Editor, Alan Rusbridger, said in Saturday’s Indepedent:

“If we don’t wake up and realise we are competing with people on a daily basis who are beating us by 12, 18 and 24 hours on stories, then we are heading to irrelevance.”

He has a point. I very rarely buy a daily newspaper at the moment, as I’ve already read the majority of its news and sport content online - whether on the paper’s own website or elsewhere.

By ’splashing’ online first, they would aim to take ownership and therefore credit for a story. Not to mention free advertising.

As I’ve seen first-hand recently, the major worry within print media is that a scoop can be leaked with just a phone call, email, even a text message. This reduces that risk.

But Alan is keen to point out that “some exclusive stories will be held pack to protect the value of its print product,” as Journalism.co.uk puts it. Again, common sense if you still need to sell newspapers.

The wording of The Guardian’s own introduction is interesting too:

“The Guardian will become the first British national newspaper to offer a “web first” service that will see major news by foreign correspondents and business journalists put online before it appears in the paper.”

‘Service’ hints, to me at least, that this could be a saleable product - a premium service for business men and the like. Also, would a business profile, for example, be classed as ‘major news’ or an exclusive story?

Someone suggested to me the other day a major benefit of such a system for newspapers: online interaction should feed back into the original story - reader comments giving reporters new leads to chase.