I am sure that the journalists who take these roles will maintain their ‘news values’ as they already have a reputation based on their work on the very newspapers in which they are reporting.

The reality is that papers don’t have the resources to send people to every event or cover every release your client issues. By hiring an on-staff journalist you can generate your own copy for your website or blog, and with the right SEO you’re going to attract traffic directly to the site.

Yes, there are obviously going to be issues of impartiality but I think this guy gets a reasonable amount of freedom and, as I understand it, his copy isn’t checked or approved before posting. No, he’s probably not going to write “My employer sucks” features, but it will be really interesting to see how it pans out.

I do a lot of writing for businesses - writing their blogs or case studies or other documents - and it’s funny because a lot of what I write is almost EXACTLY what I’d write for Computer Weekly or ZDNet or whoever - it’s just a different name on the cheques. Despite what I might have imagined five years ago, sometimes corporate writing really isn’t just advertising puffery.