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EVANSTON, Ill. -- Convergence brings television, print and online operations together to deliver news, but getting them to work together is an ongoing challenge, journalists said Friday at the Online News Association's annual conference.

Gaining a competitive advantage over other news organizations in a market has spurred the convergence partnerships, said Assistant Managing Editor/Multimedia Traci Bauer of Florida Today during a panel called "Working Together Across Mediums."

Her paper, based in Melbourne, Fla., trades stories and pictures throughout the day with WKMG-TV in Orlando.

Yet these new models of collaboration challenge longstanding cultures and journalism practices at news organizations. Persuading reporters, editors, producers and other staff to change the way they operate is still difficult, panelists said.

"I didn't find it personally hard to go back and forth between media," said Joseph Russin, assistant managing editor of multimedia at the Los Angeles Times. He has worked in newspapers and radio.

"The problem is getting a good story and telling it in a compelling way," Russin said. People like Traci Bauer and Victoria Lim can do it, but institutions tend not to do it. Newspapers are conservative and have a precise way of doing things."

Senior Consumer Reporter Victoria Lim, who works for WFLA-TV in Tampa, sees similar obstacles. In addition to her television reporting, she writes a column for the Tampa Tribune and produces online pieces for Tampa Bay Online.

"There isn't complete buy-in," said Lim. "I'm the only crazy person in the building doing this. We don't get paid extra for working in another medium. And there's still a disconnection with some people not taking broadcast journalists seriously."

Lim showed the audience three different stories she produced about a crib safety law supported broadly by politicians and child care and safety officials but ultimately rejected by Governor Jeb Bush. The television story covered the nuts and bolts of the law, said Lim. Her newspaper column discussed Bush's veto letter, and an online video clip covered consumer safety tips on buying and assembling cribs.

One particular problem in cooperative media operations is persuading reporters to post breaking stories online because they fear giving away their scoops.

Sometimes they will cooperate, while other times they will resist, said Russin. "Respect the desk. Respect their judgment. Sometimes, there will be a competitive situation where it's not in their best interest to give you the story," he said.

Panelists cited a number of key factors that make convergence successful at news organizations.

Support from the highest levels of management for convergence helps make it an institutional practice, said Russin. Executive Editor John Carroll and Managing Editor Dean Baquet backed an extended newsroom team of seven people that was created to cover the war in Iraq. The team directs continuous updates of the newspaper's Web site, he said.

Meanwhile, the news editor of WKMG-TV and the editor-in-chief of FloridaToday have decided that providing news first, whether through television or online, is the priority, Bauer said.

This attitude that has been adopted by people from both newsrooms and made it possible for both organizations to provide comprehensive coverage on the Columbia shuttle disaster.

At The Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, N.Y., online involvement is a factor in the overall performance review process for newspaper staff, said moderator Anthony Moor, a former editor who now heads OrlandoSentinel.com.

Cultivating friendly competition in the newsroom has gotten more people to accept convergence, the panelists said.

"The magic word is bylines," said Russin. "If you give reporters more bylines, you get more volume," said Russin. LATimes.com gets stories that normally would not appear in the paper because of the news cycle, he explained.

Still, communicating with others and respecting their strengths as a journalist are the most important ways organizations can make convergence work, said Lim. She said she learned how to write for newspapers with encouragement and support from an editor at the Tampa Tribune. In turn, Lim has made her newspaper and online colleagues aware of the speed and demands of television reporting and production.