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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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.