Neil Benson, editorial director of the U.K. Trinity Mirror regionals is making headlines by suggesting newspapers open PR divisions to create new revenue streams while on a panel at the Society of Editors conference.

Benson's pitch to his contemporaries: "The best of PR agencies are often run by ex-editorial people. People who worked in regional press know what it takes to hit the spot in terms of press releases and they know how to package it. So why don't regional publishers think about launching an arm's length PR agency?"

He went on to explain that newspapers could offer SEO, microsites, and video productions services to advertisers. Essentially, certain advertisers could team up with journalists to create sites dedicated to one topic and go beyond the advertorial as we know it. Selecting the partnerships would be based on what the papers would cover anyway, such as the government's Change for Life campaign against childhood obesity rather than an effort to sell DVDs at the department store.

You can follow other discussions at the conference by using the #soe09 hashtag.

Neil Benson