Inviting readers into the editorial process: in online polling about story selection, editors at the Wisconsin State Journal learn that 'the readers who vote consistently do choose weighty stories.'.(Goodbye Gutenberg / Exploring New Connections)(Editorial)

This September our newly appointed multimedia editor and our managing editor invited 90 newsroom colleagues at the Wisconsin State Journal in Madison, Wisconsin, to a brown-bag lunch to talk about "our rapidly expanding online initiatives." We expected about a dozen people, so we booked a conference room with 20 chairs. About 50 staffers balancing laptops, cell phones, notebooks and sandwiches jammed into the room, many sitting on the floor or craning their necks from the packed hallway.

With hindsight, I realized I made a huge error that day. It had nothing to do ...

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