• marketing means strategy, which is what it’s always been in other industries;
• ad inserts, especially on Sunday, regularly top the list of what readers value in the paper;
• broadcast television has six (or is it seven?) networks;
• cable TV is ubiquitous;
• it’s hard to find a typewriter of any kind;
• black-and-white photos on A-1 are rare;
• offset printing is common;
• worry begins when daily penetration drops below 50 percent;
• U.S. daily circulation is 56.7 million; and
• there are 1,509 daily newspapers in the United States (54 percent are afternoon papers).

A. Most significantly, a lot more competition in coverage areas where daily newspapers used to have an advantage. Want to know what movies are playing at the local cineplex? Now you can call the phone recording and get a complete and accurate reading of what movies are playing, what times they start, and (in some places) whether the 7:30 p.m. showing of the recently released hit is already sold out.

Want to know the weather for your ski trip to Colorado on Friday? Tune in The Weather Channel, or AOL’s weather site, or if you’re good at it, just catch the national map on the broadcast news to see what’s headed that way.

 Want to find out whether we bombed Baghdad? Catch the evening news for the facts, and “Nightline” for thoughtful analysis and to actually hear the newsmakers questioned and probed. Want to be alerted to major breaking news? Broadcast news will break into the programming, or you can check the TV monitors at the airport, in the waiting room of your auto service dealer, even at the gas pump.

Since there are more and more ways to find out what’s going on, in my opinion, the unassailable core of what newspapers have left as competitive advantages is two things. First is encyclopedic local knowledge and perspective. Of all news media, newspapers should have the coolest head, the most insightful question and the broadest base of knowledge on which to judge whether the local event is a big deal or not, whether it’s “the same old thing” from a particular newsmaker or a new behavioral twist, and whether it deserves the public’s attention or not.

Second, newspapers have a local voice. We should speak in the colloquial, rather than a patterned blandness that repeats the story that’s been heard already. We should have columnists that speak eloquently to the issues, raise blood pressures, and shape opinions. Also, we should know enough about the locale we serve to predict their response to these columns.

At heart, these are journalism craft issues since it’s the quality of our writing and editing that makes newspapers special. If all we do is publish slightly longer versions of teleprompter reports, who could blame people for preferring the convenience of hearing that news while they’re cooking dinner the night before? If readers can’t learn anything new from us, why should they bother? If they can’t trust that we got it right, why should they care that they don’t bother to read the newspapers?

Q. How has readership research changed over the years? What makes it so important to today’s editors?

A. In the 1970s, I can remember presenting findings from Urban & Associates’ research studies to editors that had never seen survey data collected on their readers or newspapers.

The three most important parts of my job at that time were (1) convincing editors that, indeed, readers can and do make judgments about their newspaper, (2) keeping them from becoming hypnotized by the trivia (e.g.: “wow, 14% of our readers attended vo-tech schools!”), and (3) asserting the reality that research is a tool for understanding market perceptions and behavior, not a cookbook that replaces sound editorial judgment.

In the 1980s, I recall that the two most important parts of my job were (1) to quell editor’s assumptions that the “great new idea” they heard that another paper started wouldn’t necessarily be such a good solution in their own market, (2) to argue, I hope eloquently, that the time to address problems of declining newspaper readership among young adults, working women, working-class families, etc. was now - when the penetration numbers were still strong and the opportunities still present, and (3) again, to assert the reality that research is a tool for understanding market perceptions and behavior, not a cookbook that replaced sound editorial judgment.

In the 1990s, I believe researchers are enjoying the best of newsroom audiences. Because both research “virgins” and pseudo-experts are becoming rare, we can spend more time interpreting the real data rather than hashing over the method. Because there’s a poverty of “hot new ideas” to steal, we can spend more time constructing initiatives from the unique raw material of that market.

Because today there’s more fear of declining readership and penetration, there’s also more motivation to do so. In the environment of the last ten years, then, the two most important parts of my job have been to (1) use the research data to paint a picture of what “could be,” and, one more time (2) to assert the reality that research is a tool for understanding market perceptions and behavior, not a cookbook that replaced sound editorial judgment.

You’ll notice, I’m sure, that in answering this question I’ve concentrated on changes I’ve seen during research presentations to the newsroom. Admittedly, this exposes a personal bias — since in my experience, there are two moments when a newspaper researcher like me actually feels the salient magic happen.

The first is at the presentation, when the editors and photographers and reporters as a whole can engage with their loyal and occasional and non-readers as a whole (or, at least, with a good researcher as its spokesman), where the “why” questions can be answered, where assumptions can be tested, and where the underlying patterns and symmetry in the data can be highlighted and understood. This is the time when all those numbers and tables and charts actually tell a story, and when you can see attitudes shift and change begin to happen.

The second bit of magic in my professional life occurs at prototype tests (usually months later). First of all, newspapers that get this far in the process are, by definition, serious about actually doing something (which is heartening to me). But until all the new coverage ideas and ephemeral design concepts and craft innovations have actually been executed on paper, they’re just a bunch of memos.

It’s only when real, live prototypes are placed in front of real, live people that necessary refinements can be seen, that quality can be judged, and that readership research can achieve its highest purpose: to predict the market outcome of an editorial initiative.

Ultimately, what makes good market research important to editors is its dual ability to suggest what might work in a particular market, and then test whether the editors’ execution of that idea actually does work. Research conducted “just to know” is OK, but when it’s employed to help improve the newspaper’s position, influence or readership, it’s grand.

Q: Tell me about the newspaper credibility study you’re doing for ASNE. What do you hope editors do with the research (which appeared in January’s American Editor and will be presented at the ASNE convention in April)?

A. What makes this study valuable to editors is that, from its inception, it was designed to dig deeply into public perceptions, and help define the underlying root causes of the declining credibility ratings measured in so many other studies.

 The six major findings achieve that objective, but I hope editors also learn something else from this research: An appreciation of how seriously readers take the issue of newspaper credibility, and how insistent they are that we do our jobs well. Some of their criticisms sting, but frankly, I dread the day when the public stops caring about us enough to complain.

Fundamentally, I hope that editors use the research to make better newspapers. There are ways to speed the process:

• Make everyone in the newsroom study the credibility research report. Twice. Discuss the findings frequently, show you believe it’s important, break down any walls of denial.
• Make reporters spell correctly, make them check quotes, make them get it right. For readers, the mistakes and errors they see in the paper aren’t debatable issues or gray areas.
• Disabuse reporters of the notion that everybody “out there” knows how great we really are. Point to the chart that shows that newspapers have only a fingernail-hold on public perceptions of offering “more careful research,” “better explanations/ details” and “higher standards for accuracy” than TV.
• In the morning news meeting, take the 10-15 minutes to really critique yesterday’s paper: Discuss not just the stories that could have been better, but the ones that weren’t very good. Ask lots of “why did it happen” questions, and wait for the answer.
• Red-line errors in the paper and post them. Select a story each day and contact the people mentioned within it, asking them if it was accurate, fair, balanced, etc. Communicate the results.
• If news subjects call with substantive complaints about a story in which they were covered or quoted, ask them if they’d be willing to come in and tell that to the reporter/photographer/editor involved. Invite whatever other newsroom folks you feel should be at that meeting. Listen, learn and fix.

1. Al Día, San José, Costa Rica, a daily newspaper (sister title to the leading newspaper, La Nación) launched in November 1992. We identified the market opportunity for a second title, built the strategy that positioned it properly relative to La Nación and more importantly, to competitors, and helped build it to 50,000 paid circulation and profitability within four years of its launch. It’s still growing.

2. Transforming several daily newspapers’ entertainment sections. They’ve gone from thin, boring, and/or struggling sections that were ineffective with readers into meaty, attractive, design-compelling and content-rich entertainment magazines that were strong enough to be foundations for “power day” strategies. Most notable among these, I believe, are the launch of XL.ent for the Austin (Texas) American Statesman 5 years ago, and the relaunch of A&E for The Oregonian in Portland (followed by the creation of a new sister magazine — Homes & Gardens of the Northwest — which has been so well-accepted that readers say they archive copies!).

3. The reposition and relaunch of The Journal in Newcastle, England. This project, from 1990, was both comprehensive internally (integrating content, design, production, advertising, circulation sales and finance) and successful externally: The circulation curve turned from a southeasterly to a northeasterly direction within months.

4. New York Newsday. I’ll always be proud to have played a part on the team that David Laventhol assembled to launch and nurture it.

5. The Saturday tab edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. We were instrumental in conceptualizing and refining the strategy behind it, one that included a new lifestyle magazine and unique sports section. In 20 years, I’d never seen such positive market response to the prototypes, and Saturday’s circulation and advertising performance to date bears out the truth of its predicted market success.

If allowed a sixth, I would submit ASNE’s Journalism Credibility Project to this list as well.

Q. So what do you do when you’re not up to your ears in newspapers?

A. According to my husband, I should be spending more time at the skeet range to get my averages back up into trophy range. Instead, however, I’m learning Spanish, buying art, brushing up on the words to “Give Me 40 Acres and I’ll Turn that Rig Around,” spending time with my kids, and trying to master Mendelssohn’s “Notturno” (with four sharps, I figure that’ll take me about four months).

Howell, co-chair of The American Editor Committee, is editor and Washington bureau chief of Newhouse News Service.