Set solid agendas to keep connections strong.

Readers expect immediacy and access. They also need to know what to think about,

With my short history as an editorial writer (only three years), I may be presumptuous to discuss the future of editorial writing.

But I've learned that my job involves becoming an instant expert on issues for which neither my college degree nor my 11 years of reporting qualifies me.

A broadcaster with lots of CBS stock once predicted that Edward R. Murrow and his successors would eventually put newspapers out of business. Newspapers no longer compete only with radio and television, but also with cable, the Internet, and the World Wide Web. Veteran editorial page editors worry aloud whether they listen closely enough to their readers, while newspaper gurus brainstorm over ways to get "interactive" with readers, the buzzword of the computer-driven new media.

Even with all this uncertainty and hand-wringing, readership remains high for editorial pages, and newspapers are unlikely to disappear anytime soon for lack of readership. (Yes, I'm an optimist.)

Still, I don't expect my daughter will be able to follow in my footsteps. The changes in the media are not only shrinking the newspaper's news hole, but also the number of news jobs. Editorial boards on traditional newspapers will likely shrink, too, while perhaps blossoming on the Internet. A powerful home computer is my hedge against the future.

Same old conflict

From afar, the editorial board seemed an important and indispensable part of a newspaper. Now that I am on an editorial . board, I can see that the age-old argument between the money-making and money-spending sides of a newspaper has become sharper and more deeply affecting.

Newspaper executives seem less concerned with preserving the editorial voice than with keeping their advertisers on board. In a few years, commentary pages without an advertisement displayed on them will likely become rare. In this survivalist era, newspaper executives don't seem to care where the lines between promotion, advertisement, and editorial are drawn.

As a newcomer to the profession, I read with a tinge of disease about the intentions of some newspapers to disband their editorial boards and turn over their pages to readers. A few papers had formed or were considering establishing citizen editorial boards to suggest topics for editorial writers.

To me, this "civic journalism" sounds like old-fashioned journalism, repackaged with nervous energy and hype to appear as innovative as a new Web site. I'm not sure readers care what we call good journalism, as long as we practice it.

Still, a renewed effort to connect with readers seems necessary in this up-close-and-personal society that has evolved, mostly as a result of the media's sharpened ability to break unfolding news and tell a stow in all its tiniest details.

Readers expect that kind of immediacy and access, too. Newspaper executives demand that readers be served. For a regional newspaper like ours, it means upgrading our telecommunications systems and giving readers more ways to respond to the commentary we write. Like most newspapers these days, the Press is now available online. We accept letters via e-mail, fax, and mail. When readers call, the editorial page editor usually answers the telephone.

We make an extra effort to break down the barriers between us and the readers. We want to give readers a reason to pick up our paper over (or along with) a copy of The Philadelphia Inquirer or The New York Times, in whose shadow the Press operates.

We know our place. The editorials that seem to really strike a nerve or at the heart of our readers are ones of local import. Our editorial board strives to hit this mark most of the time by concentrating on regional and state issues. This is our survival plan as our company looks to get lean and competitive for the future, and the newspaper industry continues to shrink.

My work is as much about making my job essential to readers as it is about commenting on issues I feel are important to discuss.

I would resist allowing readers to frame our editorial issues, for I believe that opinion writers should not only reflect what is uppermost on the minds of readers, but also discuss the issues that readers do not normally think about.

Walter Lippmann once said - and it still seems a good justification for a full-time, reasonably well-paid editorialist that people want to be told what to think about. I believe that is still true, especially as so much more to know is out there. But I think the era of ivory-tower journalism is well behind us.

Readers are not willing to be talked down to; they want a discussion rather than a lecture. That means sharing more of the editorial page and process with readers, but not surrendering it.

What do you see as the greatest challenge to editorial writing in the next 10 years? The next 50 years?

Staying relevant and finding papers willing to invest in the opinion pages.

- ERIC GORMAN 

Staying upright.

- JOHN D. GATES

There may be so many minor voices, and no major ones, that people will only seek out what they already agree with. My fear is that everything will be opinion, with no hard news reporting to set the stage.

- GEORGE B. PYLE

Keeping readers.

- BONNIE L. BLACKBURN

Moving our major metropolitan papers to the realization that institutions do not write editorials. They are written by men and women. Many small papers understand this; so does The Spokesman-Review in Spokane. Editorial writers on the same paper often disagree with one another; readers would profit from hearing those disagreeing viewpoints. If the editorial section becomes a real public forum where many arguments are organized and presented together, the section will survive.

- WARREN G. BOVEE

Being read, being correct, being up-to-date, being relevant to the reader - the same as today.

- STEIN B. HAUGLID

The growing trend for so few big companies to own so many operations. The trend toward corporate thinking.

- GAIL LEMLEY

Readership may give way to listenership to some degree, but I recall that 60 years ago the radio was going to put all newspapers out of business, particularly in the opinion business. Broadcast opinion has become more mature and some of the practitioners are downright good - witness [Marjorie] Arons-Barron in Boston.

- DR. C.R. LYLE II

Corporate chain journalism, where the editorials become corporate mouthpieces without a soul.

- ANDREW SPANO

NCEW member Rose Simmons is an editorial writer for the Asbury Park Press in Neptune, N.J.