There has been much gnashing of teeth among journalists and publishers that the end is nigh for newspapers. Frequent targets of blame for the decline in newspaper readership are user-generated content, citizen journalists and the explosion of the blogosphere.

But if you look at recent stats showing the growth in popularity of newspapers’ online properties, it seems that UGC may be helping to save the ink-stained members of the fourth estate. Online newspapers are attracting more readers than ever. I don’t think it’s coincidental that this popularity has come since many papers have embraced both the Internet’s immediacy (real time news is the thing) and its ability to foster debate and discussion with readers. It’s also come since major papers such as the New York Times have taken the locks off their content making most or all of it free online.

In Britain this week at the New Media Knowledge ‘What happens to newspapers?’ event, one person from the National Union of Journalists suggested that UGC was simply a means to reduce costs.

Nothing could be further from the truth, said Neil McIntosh, head of the editorial department at Guardian.co.uk:  “UGC is not cheap. It’s many things, but it’s not cheap. It’s extremely expensive to nurture it and to make it something worthwhile. My heart sinks when I hear the union saying that journalists are going to be replaced with UGC.”

McIntosh pointed out that media outlets have had to invest in new technology to publish users’ media files (photos, videos) and their comments. They’ve also had to retrain employees and beef up their online moderating and monitoring capabilities.

He said that the Guardian is “encouraging journalists to write the kind of things that kickstart a debate in the right direction.” It seems he’s heading in the right direction, because the Guardian was the number one online newspaper site in the UK this year.