Editorial pages must change to help save journalism: blow up the ivory tower: kill the unsigned editorial.

Matt Neistein, The Tampa Tribune: Susan echoes a point many people have made: a group opinion is better--perhaps not better, but more useful, reasoned, etc.--than that of an individual. Assuming that's true, the follow-up question is, why is the editorial board's opinion any more important or worthwhile than any other group's opinion? I'm trying to play the cynical reader/devil's advocate here. If the point of all this is to convince someone why editorial board opinions are worthwhile, then you don't have to sell them on the concept of opinion so much as the value of the editorial board's opinion versus anyone else's.

Why aren't the eight retired guys who have met at the coffee shop every morning for the last twenty-five years--who are arguably as passionate and informed about the community as the editorial board--offered the same platform and implied importance as the board? Why do we hold our collective opinion to be of more value than anyone else's?

I submit the same sentiment I offered yesterday: "Because we can."

Dennis Mangan, The Vindicator, Youngstown, Ohio: Why do police reporters get to walk up to fire Chiefs, homicide detectives, and coroner's investigators and ask questions while the fire is still smoldering or the body still warm? The man in the street doesn't get to do that. Why does a politics reporter get a seat on the campaign bus or plane? Why does the restaurant critic get to say the polenta was supermarket mush or the salad wilted? Why does the sports reporter get to sit in the press box, out of the rain and snow? Because the public (which may resent some privileges given reporters) still recognizes that the reporters are just doing their jobs. If the eight guys down at the coffee shop get to sit down with a U.S. senator for an hour, ask well-researched questions, and condense it down to twelve readable column inches, feel free to turn column one on the editorial page over to them.

Matt Neistein, The Tampa Tribune: With all due respect, those are a lot of arguments for reporters on the scene. What percentage of editorials are generated by such on-the-scene reporting? In my admittedly brief experience, a large majority of editorials are done via research and phone calls and doublechecking.

... For all of you wondering why the young snotnose traitor is being so difficult, I'm just looking for ways for all of us to create value and brand ourselves as necessary to both the paper and the reader.

When I sit down with the cynics and skeptics, I want to be able to tell them why we do what we do and why it's important without falling back on the old cliches that don't hold half the water they used to. If NCEW's going to reinvent itself for the new media landscape, it's going to have to justify its existence in that landscape as well.

Herb Field, The Patriot News, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: I am old enough and naive enough to still believe that a strong editorial voice serves as the conscience of the community and region it serves. It is a voice that, when the occasion warrants, reflects community outrage, as it did here in Harrisburg in response to the TMI accident. It is a voice that prods the community to do better, as we regularly do in calling for more effective land-use planning and a regional commuter-rail network. It is a voice that points a finger at injustice and the downtrodden, as we did in criticizing the prosecution of Altoona parents who believed in the power of prayer to heal their sick children. It is a voice that pokes fun at power, as we've done numerous times at the expense of our long-serving mayor, who this week is watching his nearly $8-million collection of Western and American Indian artifacts, bought with city money for a "Museum of the Old West" he quietly planned, be auctioned off in Dallas. And it is voice that calls attention to the future and its challenges with editorials on subjects such as building maglev train systems and preparing for "peak oil."

Dan Radmacher, The Roanoke Times: Matt's right, of course: "Because we can" is the the overriding answer. But it doesn't go far enough. It's also because our newspaper owns the platform and because someone in charge of that newspaper saw enough merit in the talent and skill of each individual on the editorial board to hire them all and pay them to produce this work daily. If those retired guys want to buy a newspaper, or start a second career as editorial writers, more power to them.

Otherwise, they're free to start a blog and see how their opinions fare in the marketplace of ideas.

George Duncan, Daily News Record, Harrisonburg, Virginia: My Monday editorial had about ninety-seven-plus comments from bloggers, readers, vocal critics, and a host of the usual suspects. So we can attract bloggers.

They may be competitors but they are also readers. Our Web editor told me a short time ago that the traffic on our editorial page is the heaviest of the paper. So we can live with this new-fangled technology. It's true some of the more fanatical commentators don't have a sense of humor but....

Frank Partsch, Omaha, retired: True, but heretofore, a certain amount of credibility--authority, if you will--accrued to institutions with a timeless role in the community and a financial stake that could be jeopardized by lapses in judgment or professionalism.

It is also true that any group of grumpy old guys at the coffee shop can draft an opinion, and that their opinion is as valid as any other. If theirs is consistently wiser and more compelling than that of an institution with a timeless role and financial stake, the readers, in their wisdom will surely flock to them. We do not, or should not, claim to have views or procedures that are more valid. We also place our product before the readers to be judged.

Ron Dzwonkowski, Detroit Free Press: The unsigned editorial is the voice of a concerned community institution, a local business that, in addition to trying to make money, has a mission enshrined in the Constitution to serve as an independent watchdog on government and public policy. The editorial voice--a product of consensus that is not always what the writer would say were he or she speaking as an individual should carry more weight than an individual's column or blog. At times, the institutional voice will cause some grief for those who are employees of the institution but not involved in its editorials. When they grouse about that, I invite them to join any and all of our editorial board meetings and influence the process. Some even do.

Lanny Keller, The Advocate, Baton Rouge, Louisiana: The editorial board is what the sociologist Robert Bellah called a mediating structure, a way that an editorial page retains some continuity even in an age of chain newspapers. If the publisher is a highly regarded circulation director from USA Today who gets a promotion, who is there to explain to him or her what the issues are, what the community needs--or at worst, keep his ego in check for a while until he learns he's not crowned philosopher-king? It's something useful, but I don't know if it's the sort of useful thing that will be written up in the civics books as a good practice.

Dennis Mangan, The Vindicator, Youngstown, Ohio: It is not surprising that a news editor would question the value of editorials; increasingly, it seems, news-side editors are driven by a belief in their own ability to gauge what readers want--based on meetings, surveys, meetings, Web-hit reports, and more meetings. Perhaps your news editor is an exception.

Good editorials are not in danger of being killed by such "why do we need them" questions. But editorials are endangered by a growing institutional desire not to offend--on the editorial page or anywhere else. The eventual result is a daily succession of gutless editorials that certainly don't offend but don't do much else either. If and when that happens, the answer to the question, "Why do we have editorials?" becomes, "No reason."

Chris Peck is editor of The Commercial Appeal in Memphis. He is on the board of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and is a past president of the Associated Press Managing Editors. Email: peck@ commercialappeal.com