The AP‘s Matt Moore has a piece out on European newspapers – European Papers Upbeat on Survival. It has an interesting nugget on the Times:

Zach Leonard, the digital media publisher for the Times, said pressures of the online world were forcing old journalists to learn new tricks. For example, search engines’ tendency to reduce stories to their first 200 characters meant writers needed to think up ever snappier headlines.

“We’re writing very pithy first paragraphs, and making the headlines as packed as we can,” he said. “It’s important in a newspaper, but it’s even more important for a search engine, where the content is organized vertically.”

The Times is also encouraging its journalists to fill out their articles with video and audio content, and teaching them how to conduct podcasts and upload video from mobile phones. In the YouTube age, the quality of material is secondary to the need to put it online in the first place, Leonard said.

“The Web is very forgiving as far as high end audio and video goes,” he said.

Still, broadcast quality video is becoming an increasingly important part of how the Times made ends meet. The paper was being turned in part, at least into a small television studio, fielding pitches from production companies and organizing advertising deals.

Leonard didn’t discuss specific figures, but said the sponsorships for the Times‘ online video content are among the top five percent of the paper’s revenue-producing deals.

That was a model he said the Times applied to all its online features.

“We don’t do anything on the site unless it makes money,” Leonard said.