Research project, consultants all at your disposal in this issue.

I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult.

--E.B. White, 1899-1985

Most of us went into journalism because the field promised excitement and a chance to change the world. But, really, who thought it would be this kind of exciting? Cutbacks, layoffs, more with less, etc.

Change is coming so fast, it's hard to figure out what to do, so we can get back to changing the world and having one hell of a good time.

Take heart. NCEW is on the case.

In this issue, you will find summaries of the NCEW Opinion Pool's first research effort to guide you in planning your next steps in opinion journalism. NCEW Foundation has funded almost $40,000 of research in three focus groups. As an observer of the ones in Seattle, I really encourage you to take full advantage of this research. A more formal report is on the way, and the Reynolds Journalism Institute will be hosting the research and posting video clips from the Seattle groups. A readership survey will follow with more information.

You will also find reports from the Knight Digital Media Center's seminar on best practices for online commentary.

I was really taken with one speaker at the March seminar in Los Angeles, a young Toronto-based blogger. Consider Rahaf Harfoush your guide across the media generation gap. She provides a snapshot of how young people want to access their news and commentary--we just have to figure out how to get on their radar screens.

Along those lines, Carole Christie has volunteered to be your marketing consultant pro bono. She is the communications director at Reynolds, and also has an impressive marketing background.

For so long, editorial boards were used to tossing their pearls of wisdom off the mountaintop, sometimes never checking to see if the messages hit the mark. Those days of passive pontificating are through. The future is becoming more about reaching out to and building audiences.

Your marketing consultant has great ideas about how to analyze your audience, your own strengths, and to connect better. Isn't that our objective? Ensuring our editorials and commentaries have the full impact.

Speaking of impact, a couple of our NCEW colleagues offer examples from the Election 2008 frontlines about the impacts their editorial endorsements played not only locally but nationally. Hunter from The Des Moines Register talks about the candidate stampeded for the Iowa caucuses, and Steve Falcone of the Reno Gazette-Journal talks about how the impact of Barack Obama's mention of Ronald Reagan in an endorsement interview--and the mad grab for the interview.

Both of them show that editorial writers still can change the world and have a hell of a good time doing it.