'Star' is conservative and balanced.

When I became editor of The Indianapolis editorial pages in May 2000, I faced this challenge: Maintain an ideologically conservative editorial page, yet at the same time attract new and diverse voices and engage the community in a dialogue about issues that concern people of all political beliefs.

It's hard to change reputations. And the Star had a reputation, not entirely deserved, of being too predictable, too knee-jerk conservative, too closed-minded. I'd also heard the allegation, definitely not deserved, that we favored letters to the editor that agreed with our views. Some liberals said they'd given up writing us (and reading us) years ago.

Almost two years into the job, I believe we have changed our reputation, but only partly because of our own efforts.

Within a few months of my being named editor, Gannett bought the Star and, from that moment on, some readers were convinced we'd become liberal overnight under orders from corporate headquarters. Any change I made to the pages, any new syndicated columnist I decided to try, was evidence of the Gannett conspiracy. One editorial that mentioned a decline in public support for the death penalty was cited by a reader as proof we'd gone over the liberal edge.

I tell readers that Gannett (whoever that is) has not once influenced our positions or directed my decisions. But I understand that some members of the public will always credit the changes made so intentionally by my staff and me to our new long-distance owners.

Having said that, I am convinced that our efforts to engage the community in dialogue unintentionally smoothed the transition for Gannett. Readers are now such an integral part of what the editorial page does each day that they feel real ownership of our pages.

Nothing we did was original to us. I borrowed, stole, and copied the good ideas I'd heard implemented by colleagues around the country. Here are the key elements of our editorial page community outreach initiative:

* Community columnists. On Tuesday, the lead column spot on the editorial page is occupied, on a rotating basis, by select local writers, including a university economist (who, incredibly, writes with great flare), an Indianapolis firefighter, and a downtown dweller who comments on local urban happenings.

* Community advisory board. Each year, I name six local "ordinary citizens" to advise me on what's happening in their respective communities. Twice a month, their views on issues in the news are featured in a special column.

* Town Hall series. In collaboration with the NBC affiliate, we co-sponsor public forums aimed at gauging public sentiment on issues and soliciting feedback before we formally take an editorial position. Topics have included: Do we really need 200 new police? How do we build community out of diversity? Out of this has developed "The People's Agenda," an annual project that surveys the public about legislative issues, conveys their positions to policy makers, and follows up on their behalf. The Star did other, less visible things that I believe helped build a better working relationship with readers and gave credibility to my pledge to be accessible to people of all political stripes.

Led by an outside consultant with expertise in "visioning," my staff wrote an editorial page creed that now is printed daily on our pages. It states, "We will defend individual freedom, pursue truth, build understanding, and nurture a marketplace of ideas." It's not terribly original, but it serves as our ever-present invitation to the public to take part.

Second, we put into writing a letter to the editor policy that explicitly favors letters that present an opposite point of view to what is said on our editorial page.

Third, I added to my otherwise conservative staff a local op-ed columnist who is so liberal he could make Ted Kennedy blush. You won't find him on the editorial page, but twice a week Dan Carpenter alienates our core conservative readership from his perch on the op-ed page.

The Star is still conservative, but with a bit more libertarian edge. We still believe in missile defense, lower taxes, and the need to abolish the Department of Education. We believe government is too large and personal liberty too important to be sacrificed for bureaucratic purposes. Call us conservative and I'll say thank you. But to readers who still claim we're closed-minded, one-sided, or predictable, I have this reply: You obviously aren't reading the newspaper.

Member Andrea Neal is editorial page editor of The Indianapolis Star. Contact her at [e-mail]