By STEVEN S. DUKE
Readership Institute

The past five years have been fascinating and frightening, discouraging and rewarding for newspapers. We've been fascinated by the opportunities of the Internet — and frightened by migration of our most valuable advertising to it; discouraged by scandals in newsrooms and circulation departments, and rewarded by exceptional journalism.

Most rewarding for us at the Readership Institute has been the growing focus on readership — not just as way to measure audience, but as a way of thinking — and the positive results it has produced.

Early pioneers embraced RI's 2000 Impact study and improved content promotion, navigation, storytelling and explanatory journalism. A brave few even adopted some ideas we tested in prototype. Then-Executive Editor Dee Maret made the Albany (Ga.) Herald the first in the nation to test our "Update" feature, putting it on page one. David Newhouse, executive editor of the Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa., followed soon after with his own "Update" feature. Today, many newspapers have adopted or adapted the idea, and recently AP added an "update" summary as part of its daily feed.

Randy Brandt, editor of the Racine Journal-Times, was an early partner, incorporating a number of RI ideas into the paper, including another of our prototype ideas, "Debatables."

The number of newspapers with editors who have "readership" in their title has grown steadily, ranging from small community dailies like the Grass Valley Union to large metros like the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Stacy Lynch, the AJC's first readership editor and now its director of innovations, has been Johnny Appleseed of the movement, spreading readership seeds through the semi-annual readership editors' meetings she has been conducting for two years. Attendance at the gatherings continues to grow, as do the list of readership ideas participants share with each other, take home and plant at their own newspapers.

Results of all this work have been gratifying. Managing Editor Bill Watson steadily and methodically implemented RI recommendations at the Pocono Record, and has seen RBS and average day readership climb the past two years. In the Readership Institute's national RBS studies, numbers have climbed for all age groups except the youngest: 18 to 24. The message: The pioneering work has paid off, but there is more to do, particularly if we are going to reinvigorate reading among young adults.

The Readership Institute's most recent work has found that how readers experience the newspaper — the intangible, emotional response — is just as important to readers as the tangible, utilitarian reasons they pick up a paper. Figuring out how to improve the reading experience, particularly for those under 35, is the next frontier, and already we see some pioneers trying new ideas, taking risks and showing courage.

Editor Scott Angus recently remade the Janesville (Wis.) Gazette, confining all the commodity news — the stuff that fills up page one in too many papers — to a two-column front page rail, opening the page for strong local stories. The goal is to help combat the negative experiences of "too much news" and "wasting my time" and enhance the positive experiences by making readers smarter and giving them things to talk about that affect them locally.

Editor Jim Witt has rethought the Fort Worth Star-Telegram with his well-publicized all-refer page one on Sundays and Mondays. But the change goes much deeper, with a fresh approach to content designed to make younger readers feel smarter and give them things to talk about. My favorite: "Do I Look Fat?", their weekly health and fitness section. Did you know that if you drink one extra 12-once can of soda per day, you will gain 15 pounds over the course of a year? And that 20 minutes of daily in-line skating will burn it off? See: you're smarter and you've got something to talk about when you go home tonight, thanks to the Star-Telegram.

Editor Dana Robbins and Managing Editor Roger Gillespie have been perhaps the boldest of all in shaking up their paper, the Hamilton (Ontario) Spectator. Accepting no sacred cows, they remade the Spec from a six-section to a four-section paper, along the way killing the business, entertainment and features sections, trimming the stock listings, converting sports to a tabloid and inventing a daily broadsheet "magazine." When they were done, 40 percent of the newsroom staff was in new or reconfigured jobs. Bold.

Newspapers are also breaking down the newspaper/web silos, finding ways the platforms complement each other rather than duplicate each other.

The Chicago Tribune was one of the early papers to enter the blogosphere when Metro columnist Eric Zorn started writing Eric Zorn's Notebook, which has driven thoughtful online exchanges on serious topics. It's columning as a conversation, not a lecture.

John Robinson, editor of the Greensboro, N.C., News-Record is taking the next step, introducing a handful of blogs on a variety of topics, including faith, schools and others. John also is out front in the movement toward journalistic "transparency," writing his own blog on what the paper does and why, and inviting readers to engage in the conversation.

The Lawrence Journal-World in Kansas is way out front in integrating print, TV and Web in innovative ways that drive user experiences. If you don't know what Editor and Publisher Dolph C. Simons Jr. and Director of New Media/Convergence Rob Curley are doing, it's time to educate yourself. Look at the newspaper and spend some serious time probing their three web sites: LJWorld.com, Lawrence.com and KUSports. Think about this: the Journal-World will send cell phone alerts to parents if their kid's Little League game gets canceled. They take seriously their job to look out for readers' interests.

The evolutionary efforts by the early pioneers have borne fruit, but they aren't going to be enough to turn the tide. That is going to take revolutionary, bold, risk-taking efforts, like those at the Hamilton Spectator and the Lawrence Journal-World.

Are you ready to join them?

Steven Duke is Project Manager with the Readership Institute at the Media Management Center. He conducts regional seminars for the American Society of Newspaper Editors on how to apply the RI findings on a day-to-day basis.