The Lancashire Evening Post is no longer only a newspaper, according to its editor Simon Reynolds.

He claims that a “quiet revolution” has transformed the title and invigorated staff.

The newspaper now boasts a multimedia newsroom, and seven months on from its launch publishes 500 stories a week, 550 pictures and 20 pieces of video online.

The result has seen not only an explosion of page views on the web – which have quadrupled – but an improved performance of circulation of the three-edition print version, he said.

Simon told the Society of Editors’ annual conference in Glasgow: “We are not a newspaper any more. We are transformed into an integrated news operation.”

He said the success was based on three factors. Interaction, the belief that news is crucial, and what he termed “weird” news.

He was speaking during a digital update session, ‘The Future is Already Here’.

Coverage of the death of a Lancashire soldier in Iraq was put under the microscope. It included the usual front page and in-paper news, video footage of the body being repatriated – filmed by the Ministry of Defence but broadcast via the Post’s website – and then coverage of the funeral, to the musical accompaniment of Amazing Grace. Local television companies failed to cover the events as in-depth as the Post.

The family was so impressed with the integrated package of coverage that they asked the paper to produce a DVD for them.

Lighter news included the sound of a cow mooing with an apparent Lancashire accent, while the mayor of Preston also got in on the act, being filmed reading the news at an audition for the newspaper’s News Idol contest, where it was seeking a face to front regular online bulletins.

During the same session, Robert Freeman of the Press Association said media habits are changing: “There is going to be a content vacuum very soon and we have a great opportunity to fill it.

“What you need to think about is how you get your content and your brand on to the growing number of platforms which the public are taking in your stride.”

Gordon Mack, of The Herald, outlined the importance of multiskilled journalism training, saying it had become the “soft target” of budget cuts and must take priority in the future.

He concluded: “The pace of change shows no signs of slackening: indeed if anything it is hotting up as more and more competitors eat into the online market.”

The Observer’s John Naughton spoke about the socialisation of youngsters, describing them as “digital natives … young people don’t read newspapers.

“The best we can hope for is that one day they may keep us as pets,” he said.

And Bertrand Pecquerie, director of The World Editors Forum, stressed that journalism was “creativity not productivity”, and said: “There’s a big problem with multimedia newsrooms. They are like prisons and this stifles creativity.”