I finished my public appearances today at West High School. The place has a very intense feel that's different from other area high schools that I've visited and I know several teachers from this school so I thought it would be an interesting field trip.

Reuben Henriques, a student, helped organize the event called the Students for Informed Response teach-in. He met me at the door to tell me that my partner for the hour, an editor who shall remain nameless from the Isthmus, could not make it because he had breaking news. Really? In a weekly?

John Nichols, columnist for the Capital Times who spoke before me, thought this was interesting also.

I'll make this short because I'd better go find out what's breaking.

The West students want more news of the war on the front page. So did at least one of the teachers. They objected to our front page that had the news of the Badgers earning the rank of No. 1 in men's basketball.

At one point, a couple of students yelled, "Lighten up!"

I should not have been surprised by this critique and call for more news of the war from a school with a reputation for high political passion. It did surprise me the young people who spoke up were so strident. Most younger readers want what we euphemistically call pop culture content and newspapers, such as the Chicago Tribune, have spent millions trying to figure out the mix in a young person's publication.

I explained that our front page needs to be local because readers have so many channels (cable, online, broadcast TV, radio, this blog) for breaking news and our only competitive advantage is our local franchise. I also told them that we had increased the national/international news inside the paper. That wasn't enough for them. I often hear this from older readers in their 70s and 80s. Coming from these young people it really threw me off.

My own personal philosophy is that you need to bring readers, particularly younger readers, in with the fun stuff so they stay for the important stuff. Columns, Badger news, even news of the weird has a place on our front page from time to time as we try to attract a broad-based readership.

Our goal here at the State Journal is to create conversations. Conversations tease out shared values. Shared values drive our democracy. Without conversation, no shared values. Without shared values, no democracy.

Many times a week we hear from readers who believe our balance of local news and war news is too heavily weighted to one side or the other. Many think this is a political decision. It's not. In our news columns we are neither pro-President Bush or anti-war.

We carry a heavy report of the news of Iraq each day. However, the newspaper and our website will fail if we only report that and don't talk with readers about other important facets of their lives: how to make sense of the election, what to talk about at work, keeping watch on government officials, exclusive in-depth reporting of our county and state, among other things.

I imagine it's hard to hear this when you are 17 and passionate about peace.

I'll admit it was rather refreshing when you are 54 and passionate about the future of news.