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York, Pennsylvania has always been an offbeat kind of newspaper town, so perhaps it is fitting that, in an unusual deal, the owners of York's two dailies recently merged properties. There are strategic reasons for this transaction. The two newspapers that serve the region, which are now in a joint operating agreement (JOA), are the "Daily Record," a morning paper with 46,500 weekday circulation, and the "York Dispatch," with 37,300 weekday and 93,200 Sunday circulation. Another unusual fact about York is that for a long time it was perhaps the only U.S. city to have an independently owned Sunday newspaper, the "York Sunday News." York had three newspaper ownerships, the two weekday dailies and an independent Sunday. When the two newspapers entered into the JOA, MediaNews received an option to buy the "Daily Record," which became the basis for the recent transaction. In effect, the option was insurance against the time when the afternoon syndrome might begin to erode the Dispatch's circulation. Indeed, over the last five years the Dispatch's circulation has declined more than 7 percent while the Record's has gained nearly 7 percent. Thus, the transaction brought MediaNews what it probably wanted all along, control of a seven-day morning newspaper.

This article examines how news outlets report issues regarding obscenities or crass language. In July 2008, the Reverend Jesse Jackson made such a comment with regards to Senator Barack Obama. His comment generally considered to be a crude colloquialism . Several prominent papers such as the "Los Angeles Times" and the "Chicago Tribune" published his comments unedited. However, others, such as the "Washington Post" and the "The New York Times" did not. Some argue that these papers did their readers a disservice because they could not discern for themselves the meaning or importance of Jackson's words. INSETS: A Stand for Civility;Avoiding Gutter Language;The AP's Take.

This article examines how the newspapers in the San Francisco, California, area has suffered more than others. The "San Jose Mercury News," was forced to lay off 31 out of 246 newsroom employees. In San Francisco, another newspaper is undergoing its own wrenching contraction. The "San Francisco Chronicle," the Bay Area's largest paper, announced it would reduce its editorial staff. When the numbers were finalized a few weeks later, 90 journalists, 23 percent of the Chronicle's newsroom had either simply resigned or agreed to take buyouts offered by the paper's owner, Hearst. Among those who've recently left the paper are Managing Editor Robert J. Rosenthal.

This article features Ken Paulson and his contributions to USA Today. USA Today is a more settled place roughly a year after revelations of star reporter Jack Kelley's brazen fabrications shamed the paper and toppled its leaders. But the wounds from that episode still sting, and the paper's humiliation has galvanized efforts to shore up credibility. Paulson has steered the newspaper onto a course of painstaking attention to sourcing and attribution, of greater openness and accessibility to readers and staff, and of swift responsiveness to hints of reporter wrongdoing or missteps by the paper. Paulson developed many of his ideas about how to run newspapers as editor of smaller sister Gannett papers and as executive director of the Freedom Forum's First Amendment Center in Nashville, where educating the public about free speech and journalism's mission was central to his job.

This article focuses on the acquisition of Pulitzer Inc. and its flagship Saint Louis Post-Dispatch by newspaper chain Lee Enterprises. Founded in 1890 with A.W. Lee's purchase of Iowa's Ottumwa Courier, Lee has remained below the journalism industry radar, mostly because the vast majority of Lee's 44 dailies (pre-Pulitzer) are under 30,000-circulation. The company puts out good newspapers at healthy, consistent profit margins, focuses on building revenue and often outperforms other companies in advertising growth. Its papers have gotten little national recognition for journalism. But the Pulitzer deal, a $1.46 billion cash purchase announced January 2005, changes that. The deal is set to close by the end of June 2005. The acquisition of the Post-Dispatch is a decided departure from the company's small-paper history. INSETS: An Enterprising Company;Find Your Niche.

This article examines the state of newspapers and ways in which they can maintain their relevance into the future. The internet dramatically disrupted newspapers traditional market domination of news. The author suggests that papers fall back on things the internet does not provide such as investigative reporting. He contends that readers still need someone to put information into context and bring meaning to it. Trust and influence within the community is a good newspaper's most valuable asset.

This article describes the radical approach by noncommercial news outlets in an era of concentration, conglomeration and commercialization of news. These organizations away from criticizing their commercial counterparts, where most of them began, and they acknowledge that such news organizations often do outstanding reporting. But they treasure the opportunity to present journalism to their standards, with often limited resources and firepower. Less-commercial media can think more in terms of social responsibility, with less oppression from short-term profit demands. The journalism may or may not be superior to that produced elsewhere, but it comes from newspeople who are aiming high and relishing their independence. Only a handful of mainstream newspapers follow the relatively noncommercial model, but two that do, the St. Petersburg Times and New London's Day, seem to have larger newsholes than papers of similar size, more local news and art, greater insulation from economic downturns, and stronger focus on long-term goals. Outside the mainstream, other types of media can follow their own less-conventional avenues. But it is theirs to choose and present their views and stands on issues.

This article reports on how the Ashbury Park Press became popular through its award-winning article series on how New Jersey legislators profit from their jobs. On September 21, 2003, the Ashbury Park Press launched a compelling series titled Profiting from Public Service: How Many N.J. Legislators Exploit the System. For days, the newspaper detailed abuses and provided examples that filled 38 pages with 72 stories. The series was dispatched over the Gannett wire to the chain's six other New Jersey papers, which had all contributed at least one reporter to a five-month effort spearheaded by the Press and captained by its energetic new executive editor, William C. Hidlay. During the 2004 journalism awards harvest, the series won two lucrative prizes. But the articles also prompted controversy in New Jersey political and journalistic circles, where people had been accustomed to a more restrained form of reporting. Although the series did not accomplish all that it set out to do, notably in the area of pay-to-play reform, what the Legislature enacted amounted to the biggest ethics reform in New Jersey since Watergate. The Press will track the impact of pay-to-play reform when it takes effect in 2006.

This article examines why editorial pages keep publishing newspaper endorsements of presidential candidates even though few voters are being swayed by these endorsements. The impact of endorsement on national or even regional elections--contests in which candidates are well-known among voters--is negligible. A Pew Center for the People & the Press study released in January 2004, which measured media influences on voters during the 2004 presidential campaign, concluded that newspaper endorsements are also less influential than four years ago, and they dissuade as many U.S. citizens as they persuade. But when the hometown newspaper is the primary source of preelection information for a particular race, its endorsement can and does sway voters--positively and negatively. In 2000, Editor & Publisher magazine found that 70 percent of papers and 96 percent with circulations of 200,000 or more that responded to a survey were likely to make a presidential endorsement. Not among this group are the nation's two largest newspapers--USA Today and the Wall Street Journal. Neither endorses candidates of any kind. The founder of the first thinks endorsements are demeaning to readers, and the second views principles as more important than politicians.

In the wake of Jayson Blair, Jack Kelley and numerous other journalists who were into instances of fabrication and plagiarism, the U.S. newspapers are scrutinizing their operations and stiffening their defenses against ethical lapses. With dismaying regularity, papers across the country are realizing that they have been had by cheating reporters. Jayson Blair's bamboozling of the "New York Times," the most headline-grabbing example, is among the reasons the industry has since heard of sin after sin after sin. As each new case chipped away at the news industry's already fragile credibility, most newsroom leaders this year heard a call to action. Knowing that wiping out plagiarism and fabrication is pretty much impossible, editors started having at it just the same, tightening ethics policies, having heart-to-heart talks with their staff, monitoring corrections, tracking expense reports and learning about software that detects plagiarism. To set the stage for solid editing, newsrooms might have to rethink the traditional editor-to-reporter ratio. Often, top editors say, there are so many reporters per supervisor that an editor just does not have enough time in the day to give copy the attention it deserves, let alone know exactly what each reporter is up to. INSET: PLAYING DEFENSE.

The article reports on the sale of "Point Reyes Light," a weekly newspaper in Marin County, California, to editor and publisher Robert Plotkin in November 2005. The newspaper is legendary both in journalism circles and in Northern California because of its former editor and publisher, Dave Mitchell. The paper won more than 100 state and national awards during the time of Mitchell including the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 1979. A hallmark of the paper is its creative approaches to immigration stories.

This article looks at the state of broadcasting and journalism in Iraq, as of June 2004. In December 2003, some 290 publications, in addition to one television station and innumerable local radio stations, were operating in Iraq, according to a count by Gareth Bayley, the Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman to the Iraqi and Arabic media. Of the 130 or so publications that still come out regularly, only about 10 are daily newspapers. The lack of independent Iraqi media comes down to simple economics. Editor Hassan Fattah says the loss of "Iraq Today's" main funder and security concerns led him to close the paper, although there is still an online version. For the most part, the only organizations with enough money and desire to launch a media outlet are political parties. Most newspapers and radio stations, for better or worse, are openly run with a political agenda. Iraqi journalists often make up the majority of reporters at press conferences, and they are not afraid to demand answers from the U.S. spokespeople on the parochial as well as the political. They have insisted that a family whose car was crunched by a military Humvee get restitution, and they pointedly asked why the U.S. has refused to back immediate, direct elections.

Since the plagiarism scandals, iThenticate has sent offers to 200 newspapers in the U.S. It says it has added a number of them to its roster of clients, the papers wish to remain unidentified. Rates vary, but most newspapers can expect to pay a flat fee and an additional fee for every 500 words submitted for scrutiny. The program scours gargantuan databases of academic papers, Web pages and published work and in seconds produces a color-coded list of possible plagiarism instances. "The Courant" is using the software on many of its opinion-editorials to guard against shortcuts by contributors who may not know the guidelines for attribution, but not in other sections of the paper. Another plagiarism-detection service, MyDropBox, which launched in fall 2003, says it too has newspaper and magazine clients. But like iThenticate, it is keeping mum about who they are. For drive-by plagiarism detection, editors can turn to WCopy-find, a free downloadable program.

The article reports on the dismissal of Baltimore Sun newspaper editor Bill Marimow. Marinow was an award-winning investigative reporter during the glory days at the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper. The Sun's publisher at the time was Mike Waller, a gravely voiced former editor who remained a newsman until the day he retired. It is unclear exactly what precipitated Marinow's abrupt dismissal. During the Sun's bitter negotiations with the Newspaper Guild, The Tribune Co. took a hard line. Marinow publicly embraced the company position, but behind the scenes lobbied unsuccessfully for a less harsh approach. That turned out not to be a popular move with Tribune. And while Marinow had reduced the newsroom staff significantly via attrition, he adamantly resisted layoffs in his department. The editor's beheading triggered newsroom fears of yet more dramatic incursions by the bean counters. Some voiced concern over the fate of the paper's foreign bureaus. Jim Warren, a Chicago Tribune newspaper deputy managing editor, warned against casting his paper's parent company as an unfeeling meanie stomping on the cause of quality journalism. Newspapers like the L.A. Times and the Sun are true treasures. If the budget ax is wielded to beef up profit margins, it will be obvious.

This article describes how some news organizations are relying on their readers for newsgathering. It is called 'crowdsourcing' solicits tips and information from readers, who can influence stories as they happen rather than after publication. After a bridge collapsed in Minneapolis in 2007, the "Des Moines Register" posted a message on their web site asking readers for details. Gannett papers have found that crowdsourcing can be helpful in investigative endeavors.

This article examines editorial practices at "The New York Times," in response to its subdued reporting of the scandal at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The story regarding substandard medical conditions for returning veterans was first reported by "The Washington Post," and the Times has a policy of not following a rival. The author wonders if this institutional ego impedes the paper's responsibility to the public. Editor Bill Keller acknowledged as much but stopped short of reevaluating policy.

This article presents the author's perspective on the economic difficulties and subsequent layoff at many American newspapers. He objects to how the corporate entities that own the newspapers attempt to frame the cutbacks. They try to make the reductions seem like an opportunity for the papers to do more. The author recognizes the economic realities but finds the propaganda insulting.

The article provides information on the appointment of Mike Connelly as editor of the Sarasota Herald Tribune newspaper. Connelly is the former vice president of Congressional Quarterly journal. Connelly says that when it comes to journalism values, the difference between men and women is scant. He looks forward to continuing the Herald-Tribune's ambitious tradition of multimedia news and thoughtful enterprise pieces. He started his journalism career at the Wall Street Journal as a copy editor in 1981, becoming deputy bureau chief in Chicago, Illinois for the paper four years later and moving on to editor posts at the Saint Paul Pioneer press and the Baltimore Sun.

Features Bill Keller, executive editor of 'New York Times' and deals with the issues confronting him. Career background of Keller; Remarks from Keller about life outside the newsroom; His plans to bolster the paper's investigative reporting.