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Declining legacy media seriously affects local journalism in Sweden. Since 2004, nearly every second local office for local newspapers has been closed, and local coverage is diminishing. In a parallel development, new types of hyperlocal media are growing, according to a national mapping of local media ecologies. The study presented here is based on two surveys: one of local municipalities and one of independent hyperlocals. The key question is: are hyperlocals filling the gap? In many cases, the motivation behind new hyperlocal media has been discontent with declining media coverage from legacy media. In general, however, the pattern is more complicated; most hyperlocals grow in places where legacy media is also present. The main conclusion is that hyperlocals are only partly filling the gaps from declining legacy media, while parts of Sweden are becoming “news deserts.” Another important result is that hyperlocals are developing both in print and online, often in combination, to create a sustainable business model.

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Multiskilling in a journalism context is not a case of "de-skilling" of the profession. There are problems related to the quality in newsrooms adapting multiskilling strategies, but in general multiskilling is more correctly defined as a re-skilling or an up-skilling. This is the conclusion from results of a survey of 1,500 journalists in Poland, Russia and Sweden, along with interviews with 60 journalists in these three countries. Multiskilling in journalism gives more room for creativity and more power to the individual journalist, according to those with experience of working as multi-reporters. It allows them more freedom to make their own decisions in their daily tasks, e.g., choosing subjects and stories. At the same time, from the perspective of the media company, multiskilling is a strategy to increase production in the newsrooms. But multiskilling has no direct correlation with downsized newsrooms: it is rather an industry norm for how to organize work in newsrooms of today. Multiskilling is also changing the journalistic culture, putting more focus on production and adapting content for different channels.