Listen closely to critics and do a better job selling our value.

Last October, Jim Boren of The Fresno Bee posted a comment to the NCEW list-serve that highlighted some of the pressures editorial page editors and writers are facing from their own newsrooms. A news-side colleague suggested the editorial page dispense with unsigned editorials. The ensuing email thread made me, all at once, inspired about our craft and concerned. Excerpts are included in the pages of this issue's Masthead Symposium, which explores some of the pressures--both external and internal--on our pages.

For me, the disturbing thing about this topic is that three NCEW members turned me down when I asked them to write about the tensions between editorial pages and newsrooms. Not a shrinking violet among them, each opted not to contribute, in part or in whole, because of the very tensions I was asking them to write about.

Nevertheless, we must somehow find a constructive way to face our critics, win them over with our inherent value, listen to them, and increase our value and build readership online while keeping our tried-and-true fans happy. Toward that end, I asked for some constructive advice from well-known news editors--one print, one broadcast--a journalism school dean, and two Poynter faculty as well as a couple of our own members.

Take a deep breath. Then read the friendly advice of Chris Peck, editor of The Commercial Appeal in Memphis. A former president of Associated Press Managing Editors and an American Society of Newspaper Editors board member, Peck calls on editorial pages to kill the unsigned editorial and blow up the ivory tower. Interestingly, Gene Patterson, editor emeritus at The St. Petersburg Times in Florida and winner of the 1966 Pulitzer for editorial writing, agrees, in part. He advises the institutional editorial be used only occasionally but judiciously; otherwise, devote your pages to staff columns. WISC-TV station manager Tom Bier, former chair of the Radio-Television News Directors Association, likes the institutional editorial but suggests we personalize them more by attaching a face to them.

While we're thinking about the future of our pages, be sure to read the compelling argument to resist the rush for "local, local" at the expense of providing a perspective on international affairs. John Bersia, editorial writer turned academic, argues that international events have local impacts.

Eddie Roth, coordinator of NCEW's groundbreaking Opinion Pool project, shares a good-news update about our organization's efforts to boost members into the future. Three pilot sites are commencing focus groups with young, wired people about what they want in an editorial page.

Keep the faith.