“There are some things you can do cheaply, but other things you absolutely have to spend money on,” said Katharine Fong of the San Jose Mercury News at the beginning of the Online News Association Conference session, “Running a Digi-Newsroom on the Cheap.” One of those things, Fong said, is a quality, high-capacity server. The Mercury News learned that the hard way when a blog generated so much traffic that the servers crashed.

Tiffany Shackelford of Stateline.org moderated the panel. In addition to Fong, John C. Havens, BlogTalk Radio; Dale Steinke, KING TV; and John Moore, Ventura County Star participated.

The following are tips and more from those on the panel, categorized by subject:

Commitment and Funding
“You need to have commitment from on-high in a newsroom, but it’s very important to include middle-managers in getting people trained and on board in creating a multimedia newsroom.” – Moore

“It is essential I have found to free up at least one person to be your mini r & d department.” –Fong

“Even with budget cutting, you need to reallocate your resources – even a little – to give people the tools and send people to proper training…. Somehow, you have to make room for that and allocate those funds.” - Fong

Giving People Time to Learn
“You need to give people the time, without feeling guilty, to learn, for example, how to shoot and edit video.” - Fong

Look into free or low-cost programs that are open-source, such as SoundSlides. “These are a God-send.” – Fong

Partnering Can Save Money
Make strategic decisions to partner with companies that have what you need, rather than spending the time and money to develop or purchase programs. - Fong

Partner with your community! Accepting comments, photos and other community and visitor submitted elements is the ultimate in cheap content: It’s free.  - Steinke

Using Free Tools
Use free tools, like Google Maps mash-ups and iMovie, to add layers of content. You don’t have to purchase expensive software at the outset of your experimentation with multimedia. Check for solutions on places like Download.com. – Steinke 

“Things will not be free for very long. Do these things now. Period. End of story…. We are in a rare in blessed era where you can put up a video on YouTube... and millions and billions of people can see it.” – Haven

Saving Time
“Just because you can publish a video or a blog post in a few minutes, doesn’t mean you don’t do drafts.” – Haven.  (Haven showed what he had done earlier today with his Sony Flip camera and talked about how quickly he was able to produce and post a video. He warned, though, that it’s still important to pay attention to quality.)