The Paper Chase.

Byline: GRAYDON CARTER

The Paper Chase

Goodness knows, I'm not one to complain, and I'm sure you're not the sort to, either, but aren't you growing just a bit tired of reading about the demise of newspapersin the papers themselves? It's no wonder readership is down. Who has the patience to hear endless whining about someone else's misfortune when your own fortunes are rickety? This is not to say that the health and vigor of the nation's dailies are not vital to the intellectual health and vigor of the commonwealth as a whole, or that newspapers aren't an essential force in keeping a watchful eye on corrupt politicians and venal corporate overlordsneither of which are in short supply these days. I would also hope you feel that the loss or even weakening of the nation's principal daily, The New York Times, would mark an end to life as we know it. The Internet is partly to blame for all of this, and perhaps micro-pricing or gated content will be part of the solution. "Youthing" down a paper to attract 21-year-olds isn't the answer: the only way you're ever going to get the average 21-year-old to read a daily newspaper is to wait 9 years until he's 30. My suggestion to newspapers everywhere is to give the public a reason to read them again. So here's an idea: get on a big story with widespread public appeal, devote your best resources to it, say a quiet prayer, and swing for the fences.

London has long prided itself on the vitality and number of its quality newspapers. But they have not been immune to the recent downturn in print fortunes. This is true even at The Daily Telegraph, one of Britain's finer broadsheets, which two years ago moved to shiny new offices in Victoria, in Central Londona stone's throw from Google's headquarters there, and a lifetime away from the vaunted squalor of Fleet Street. Long a small- c conservative paper ("The Torygraph" in Private Eye ), it was taken over from Conrad Black in 2004 by the Barclay brothers, two press-shy working-class outsiders, who made their first fortune in real estate. Three years ago, they installed Will Lewis, then 37 and the youngest editor in the paper's history. Lewis was a star at the Financial Times and The Sunday Times . He was also a technophile who believed that news was not just something you read the next morning. He revamped the paper's Web site and got the reporters to blog, produce Webcasts, and even Twitter to bring in a broader (and younger) audience. To many in the business, it seemed the Telegraph had fallen prey to the same near-lunatic fascination with its Web site that has been bedeviling American papers, not least the Times . You might think the Telegraph was following the general battle plan for all papers going off a cliff everywhere.

But go back four years, before the move to the jazzy new space. In 2005, Ben Leapman, a reporter for the Telegraph, filed a Freedom of Information Act request asking to see the expenses of six members of Parliament. His request was denied repeatedly, but he had the doggedness of a good journalist, and finally a government "Information Tribunal" ruled that it was in the public's interest that details of the expenses claimed by M.P.'s (who receive an average $172,000 a year in salary, expenses, and housing allowances) should be provided in full. In March 2009 word circulated around Fleet Street that a disc containing the detailed expense reports of all 650 members of the House of Commons had found its way to the Telegraph' s offices (possibly in exchange for cash). Lewis didn't merely print the details of the M.P.'s expenses, as so many ...