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This article offers a look at the state of the elite press in India. Most English-language dailies in Indian cities include a separate city section that seems reserved exclusively for pin-ups. In the December 6, 2004 edition of The Times of India, for example, the city section of the paper known as Delhi Times had seven large pictures on the front page alone. The women in these pictures were not naked, strictly speaking, but the parade of models and starlets was unending. The Hindustan Times, the other market leader among Delhi's English-language papers with a national circulation just over one million, was the same, and its was no different in other cities. The pin-up phenomenon is only one aspect of the makeover of India's English-language press. None of the publications mentioned above are tabloids; most of them have long histories as serious newspapers, conservative in political sensibility and taste, while the language they work in restricts their audience to the upper and middle classes living in urban centers. The number of English-speakers in India is probably no more than 4 percent or 5 percent of the billion-plus population, but they are at the top of the heap, an affluent enclave of largely upper-caste Hindus.

This article discusses the events leading to what would transform life at The Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper from the merely disheartening into the profoundly terrifying. It began to unfold shortly after 3 o'clock on the afternoon of last November 1 when Sandra Long, a deputy managing editor, appeared outside the glass wall of managing editor Anne Gordon's office waving a small piece of paper. Gordon returned a few minutes later and said, without obvious concern or alarm, that the largest holder of stock in the Inquirer's corporate parent, Knight Ridder, was demanding that the company be sold in order to boost the stock's sagging value.

This article comments on the practice of journalism by the newspaper, "The Des Moines Register." The paper was not as good as it used to be. Impressions are subjective, but the paper always took great care to be fair and accurate. Its reporting reflected not only a working knowledge of the subject but often an understanding of sometimes-subtle historic relationships. It took its watchdog function seriously. In some ways the "Register," purchased by Gannett in 1985, remains a good paper. It has always been, and continues to be, a champion of open public meetings and public records, and it ran a great exposé on local law enforcement and county attorneys, which was a finalist for a 2005 Pulitzer.

This essay discusses the restoration of journalism through the development of a business model that finds profit in truth, vigilance and social responsibility. A newspaper produces two kinds of influence: societal influence, which is not for sale, and commercial influence, which is for sale. The quality of the societal influence enhances the value of the commercial influence. An advertising message is worth more if it appears in an environment of credibility and respect. The appeal of this concept is that it provides economic justification for journalistic quality. If it is valid, then newspapers that sacrifice quality to prop up the bottom line are undermining their business model. With some proof, this is something that media companies could take to investors. For starters, measuring newspaper business success is difficult because the companies are chronically secretive about their financial performance. One available number is circulation. By tracking the change in a newspaper's household penetration over time, companies can compare success across markets. Most papers are losing penetration in their home counties, but at wildly varying rates. There are measures of quality that had some connection to slowing this loss. These include credibility, accuracy, ease of use and staffing.

This article comments on the efforts of "The New York Times" to regain its credibility after the Jayson Blair scandal. Late in 2003, "The New York Times," against all its inclinations but desperate to exorcise the ghost of Jayson Blair, cracked open its door to the alien presence of a public editor. The message to readers was clear: the paper would do anything—yes, even that—to regain their shaken trust. Building institutional credibility through the person of an independent intermediary was hardly a new idea. When Daniel Okrent took that historic job, he swelled to thirty-nine the U.S. ranks of the Organization of News Ombudsmen (ONO), a dedicated band of seasoned journalists in similar service around the country at outlets big and small, mostly newspapers. Together they carry forward a movement that began some forty years ago in response to the public's alarming disaffection with an unaccountable press. Whatever the nuances of their various titles—reader representative, public editor, reader advocate, ombudsman—they are, in effect, the complaint department of the news business. The complaints, for the most part, are ordinary, and easily dispatched: This is why the paper was delayed, why the ink stains the fingers, why the late sports scores have vanished, why the comic strip was dropped.

The article discusses the lack of audience loyalty to particular news web sites. It notes that news web sites present as-yet unexploited opportunities for journalism. It mentions a lack of embedded hyperlinks and social networking features. The authors notes recommendations for improvements. The article refers to the paper on sustaining journalism by Leonard Downie, Jr. and Michael Schudson elsewhere in the issue.

The article discusses journalism, newspapers, and declines associated with competition from free web-based news. It notes the importance of listening to the message that consumers are sending regarding their tastes and desires for news. It refers to the paper on sustaining journalism by Leonard Downie, Jr. and Michael Schudson elsewhere in the issue.

This article presents the author's perspective on the state of American newspapers. Newspapers are struggling with declining revenue and circulation. Many owners are insisting the papers reduce content and cut costs through less expensive journalism. The author feels that newspapers should refocus on content that emphasizes depth and knowledge. He expresses hope that Lee Abrams, an executive at he Tribune Company, a chain of newspapers, will do so.

This article focuses on Nunatsiaq News, an English-Inuktitut bilingual weekly that serves the province of Nunavut and northern Quebec, which has moved beyond the debate over the urgency of global warming searching out stories that give readers a sense of why their homeland is changing and what the future might bring, as of March 2006. The paper's offices are in Iqaluit, Nunavut's capital city, which was built on a former U.S. Air Force base in the shadows of the low hills on the southern tip of Baffin Island, about 1,300 miles north of Ottawa. Jim Bell, editor-in-chief of Nunatsiaq, said they do not have to tell the story of the hunter who has trouble hunting because of the thin ice, their readers already know that. But what their readers want to know is the scientific projections of where the Arctic is going to be fifty years from now.

This section offers some of the missing context in a speech delivered by Dennis FitzSimons of Tribune newspaper about the company's important journalistic mission, as of March 2006. FitzSimons said that their focus on cost reduction, given their current revenue environment, has been intense. What he failed to mention was despite all the sky-is-falling rhetoric, Tribune remains enormously profitable. Yes, newspapers are suffering through a difficult transition, but Tribune's operating profit margin for 2005 is over 20 percent. When FitzSimons said they are local media, what he failed to say was so of course they killed Chicago's 115-year-old City News Service, shuttered eleven community papers owned by The Morning Call in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and decimated Newsday's New York City desk.