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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 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 profiles Everett J. Mitchell II, editor and vice president/news of the Tennessean periodical in Nashville, Tennessee. At his Louisville high school, Mitchell became managing editor of the paper, The Paw Print, in just his second year on staff. At the University of Kentucky, he was editor of an African American newspaper, the Communicator. Tennessean president and publisher Leslie Giallombardo appreciated Mitchell's experience in investigative reporting and watchdog journalism. Mitchell plans to encourage revelatory journalism by exploring major community issues like health insurance for the poor, local school funding and Nashville's music industry. He believes that journalists should tell the public why things are happening to help them make change if change is needed. Mitchell is the daily's first African American editor but not the first among Gannett's southern papers. He praises colleagues in Kentucky, Alabama and Mississippi. Mitchell was managing editor of Gannett's Detroit News for four years. He started there as a police reporter in 1989 and later became deputy city editor. After management jobs at the Cincinnati Enquirer and other Gannett papers in Oregon and Delaware, he returned to Detroit in 2000.

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.