Help us deliver the paper you want

Love us or hate us.

Respect us or dismiss us.

Read us or toss us.

But please, please talk to us.

In The Spokesman-Review newsroom, we now speak of the need, every day, to reflect the life of our communities in all of their wholeness and complexity.

This is what we mean: We want people to see their lives and the lives of their families, friends, co-workers and fellow citizens reflected in the pages of the newspaper every day, and in a way that seems honest and authentic.

Easy to say. Hard - very, very hard - to do.

To make certain that our journalism presents an honest reflection of peoples' lives, we need to understand and appreciate the complexities of community life more effectively than ever before.

That means doing everything we can to open our newsroom to people - listening to complaints and compliments, gathering story tips and content suggestions and even involving citizens, both readers and non- readers, in the newsroom discussions that determine the newspaper's daily content.

In recent weeks we've done or are about to do several things that open the newsroom to the public.

I hosted a series of six community forums earlier this fall, inviting citizens to talk to me about the newspaper and offer suggestions for changes and improvements. Attendance varied considerably, but I had the chance to visit with well over 100 people before the forums ended. We'll do another round in the first quarter of 2003.

Last week, we began a series of three community forums on our Business section and business coverage. Business Editor Carla Savalli is asking participants to help us improve this vital coverage area.

In coming weeks, we'll hold a series of similar forums dealing with our Friday "Weekend" tabloid and, eventually, with other parts of the paper.

We're preparing to launch a reader-feedback program dubbed "RSVP" for "Readers Share Your Viewpoints." RSVP questionnaires will appear in print and online at www.spokesmanreview.com.

The first questionnaires will deal with business coverage. Over time, however, all aspects of the paper will be featured in the RSVP program.

We're opening our morning news meetings to the public. Newsroom staffers, including most of the senior editors, meet every weekday at 10 a.m. to critique that day's paper and to talk about content for the next. The meetings generally last 30 to 45 minutes. If you're interested in participating in a meeting, please call my assistant, Patty Franz, to make an appointment. Her number is 459-5420.

In addition to the above steps, we're making it easier than ever to contact newsroom editors with story ideas, content suggestions or complaints. Look for e-mail addresses and phone numbers throughout the newspaper.

Newspaper veterans have come to realize that an open, accessible newsroom generally is viewed as a more credible newsroom by readers. That's true, of course, only if readers see that their involvement with the paper produces content that truly reflects community life. We hope that will be the case here.

Meanwhile, we're dealing with issues of newspaper credibility in other ways.

Beginning in early December, we'll move our daily column of news content corrections to the front page of our local news section (the Region, Valley or Handle page depending on the edition you receive).

Placing corrections on this vital news page makes a statement: The Spokesman-Review is committed to accuracy in its news columns, and we will correct errors of fact quickly and prominently. We invite readers to call immediately when they discover a fact error.

I'll return to this space frequently in the coming weeks to talk more about these and other changes in The Spokesman-Review.

As always, I invite your comments and ideas. Please don't hesitate to write, e-mail or call.

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