The newspaper industry is forced to find new business models for their digital channels due to decreasing revenues from subscription, single copy sales and advertising. One of many paths to explore is user generated content (UGC). UGC has been described as a democratizing “tool”, a new way for newspapers to connect to their audience, and also to attract advertisers in a new way. So far, research on UGC in a newspaper setting has either focused on the user or the newspaper perspective. By two different questionnaires, one to newspaper readers with 3663 respondents and one to newspaper staff with 204 respondents we attempt to make a comparison of reader and newspaper views on UGC in news media. The purpose of this paper is to describe perceptions and views of user generated content in the newspaper context, and to investigate if there is a gap between newspaper staff and reader perceptions. The findings show that readers in general value UGC to be important and attractive content, but that only a few are positive to contribute with UGC. Newspaper staff shows a tendency to think that users rate UGC content value higher than they actually do. Newspaper staff also rate that users are more likely to contribute with UGC than they actually are. There is also a difference between what newspaper staff think motivates readers to contribute and what the reader survey shows. This paper contributes to the understanding of UGC and also provides valuable insights to newspaper firms considering exploring UGC.