Sassy pages add spice to bland paper.

As a columnist examining the editorial page, I stand on a PT boat that buzzes around in the shadows of an aircraft carrier.

I know editorials are read by movers and shakers. I try to look at life from the perspective of the moved and shaken.

Therefore I tend to think of the editorial page as institutional, while the column can be rebellious. I think of the editorial page as stable, stately, and consistent, while the column can be quick, mischievous, and unpredictable.

The editorial page speaks; the columnist responds. If the editorial page packs a bigger wallop, the columnist has more fun.

The most effective editorial pages, I think, are those that behave the most like my ideal columnist. They provoke. They entertain. They crusade. They are sassy. Liberal or conservative, you know where they stand and you appreciate it. They preach, but also inform, entertain, analyze, and set agendas. They give personality to what might otherwise be a faceless, nameless monolith of a newspaper.

They also give the newspaper a place within the context of the larger community.

The Wall Street Journal's editorials offer a good example. Their point of view - supply-side, Euro-centric conservatism could not be more clear, yet they do not take themselves so seriously as to be churlish, a bore. Usually.

Anyway, even when I disagree with their conclusions, which is most of the time, I respect their sense of unwavering commitment, their clear perspective and their original thinking. I never tire of wondering what they have to say next as they make significant contributions to the national debate.

Is the noble experiment working?

Editorials are what Tom Wolfe once called Time magazine: a noble experiment in group journalism. Is the experiment working? Those who are interested less in issues than in personalities, which tends particularly to be true of younger readers, may not think so. To them, the editorial page is a powerfully relevant wolf in the gray clothing of an anachronistic sheep. The challenge for today's editorial page editor is to marry the stately grace and power of the newspaper's glorious past with the riveting electrical impact of the age of Oprah.

Ben Bagdikian, author of Media Monopoly, once wrote that the media don't tell us what to think, but they do tell us what to think about.

Changing times and the information explosion have given our audiences a lot to think about. Opinion pages help them sort things out through the filter of personal opinion.

Editorial pages also open up the pages of the paper to the reader in the letters column, which was doing what talk radio is doing long before talk radio was cool. As we move into the new century, I think editorial pages that expand the space they devote to letters and other forms of reader feedback will turn out to be on the right side of history.

USA Today pioneered the use of a response editorial in each newspaper. I don't think it will catch on with many others. For one, it takes time, which editorial page editors already have too little of. For another, there are more than two sides to every issue, far too many sides to be contained in any one editorial page. Newspapers in my opinion are better off concentrating on the presentation of one good, clear, thoroughly thought-out view on each issue, then leave it to letters columns and op-ed pages to take the debate wherever it is going to go.

At a time when newspaper people wonder how long we are destined to survive in this world, the editorial page actually offers an enduring relevance. Never have the issues facing our nation been more complicated. Never has there been a greater demand for analysts, commentators, and pundits who can help make sense out of it all. Never has there been a greater need for someone to offer the comforting knowledge that beneath the complexities exists a simple, rational sense to it all. Never has there been a greater need for effective connections between the movers and shakers and the moved and shaken.

As I buzz around in my PT boat, I can't wait to see which way that big ol' aircraft carrier is going to fire next. Love it or hate it, it's too big and important to ignore. The best its captains can do is keep it polished and full of ammo while taking time to aim its guns in the right direction.

NCEW member Clarence Page is a syndicated columnist.