In an effort to keep Utah's oldest newspaper, the Deseret News, circulating, it will combine its newsroom with those of KSL 5 Television and KSL Newsradio, creating the "largest integrated newsroom in the market," explained KSL.com.

The announcement of the merger came this week.

"With this large newsroom, we have more reach and more coverage than ever before and that frees up other journalists to do the in-depth news and analysis," Clark Gilbert, President and CEO of Deseret News, is quoted as saying.

Con Psarras, Vice President of KSL 5 News, said that such an integrated newsroom is the future of journalism.

The news of the multi-platform newsroom comes after the newspaper on Aug. 31 announced the layoff of more than 80 full- and part-time workers, reducing the newspaper's staff by about 43 percent, according to the Deseret News itself.

Such newspaper and TV mergers could be the next "big-thing" in journalism -- if they can work, wrote Alan Mutter in his blog "Reflections of a Newsosaur."

In Florida, the Tampa Tribune and WFLA television joined newsrooms 10 years ago, and the results haven't been "too encouraging," Mutter wrote. "While hybrid newsrooms undoubtedly save money on everything from reporters to real estate, the journalistic improvements promised by Media General a decade ago are not evident at the combined news operation of the Tampa Tribune and WFLA, an NBC affiliate."