Members of the media take for granted that people not in information-gathering fields understand how decisions regarding “news” are made.

Print journalists, as well as television and radio broadcasters, can have an almost arrogant demeanor when asked why a story is on page one, the lead piece or heavily covered.

The knee-jerk response by the media is to flash a surprised look and question “Why don’t you already know why it is so important?”

Truthfully, surveys show most of the public has next-to-zero knowledge why certain stories get more coverage than others, and that most people often have questions about why “news” is even newsworthy.

The Northern Star realizes a community uninformed about why a decision is made is as counter-productive as a community uninformed of the decision itself.

In order to break down the walls for Star readers and create a more transparent newsroom, we have created an editor’s blog available on www.northernstar.info.

Each entry will include the paper’s top editors discussing recent happenings involving our paper.

For example, are you curious why we chose to use anonymous sources last week in a story regarding Kishwaukee Community Hospital?

Do you want early info on our Hurricane Katrina fundraiser before we publish the details next week?

If so, the blog will offer an inside look at why some key choices were made.

We hope the blog will create a face for the newspaper beyond our office in the Campus Life Building and the copies scattered around DeKalb and campus each day.

A more humane approach to news distribution encourages dialogue between our organization and the community we serve.

Additionally, e-mail contacts are included with each post. After all, correspondence takes more than one party.

Though we still encourage letters to the editor for publication in the daily paper, the blog will allow responses directly on entries posted within.

We also hope readers eventually will send letters to the editor for publication regarding blogged topics.

We do not intend for the blog to be a source for news stories.

We have no intention of shrinking our paper or changing the format you read daily. However, we will utilize this rapidly-growing medium to further your understanding of our product.

Hopefully you’ll grasp the opportunity to see why things are done, instead of just taking the end result at face value.

Agree? Disagree? Contact us at

www.northernstar.info.