About 12 readers called or emailed today to let me know their feelings about the changes I described in my Sunday column. Most of them had suggestions of their own. Many wanted us to turn back the hands of time.

I'm not sure what to say to readers who want us to go back to a day in which we put international and national news exclusively on the front page. You can't go very far in Madison without hearing a radio report, seeing a cable screen crawl, taking in a TV newscast or even inadvertently bumping into a website that has up-to-the-minute news of the nation and world. Why would readers want news in the newspaper that is hours old? 

Our strategy is to leave the breaking national and international news to the media that do that best. We still include a great deal of national and international news in our pages. But we've long since stopped pretending it's breaking news. Instead it's summaries and news of perspective. We try to help readers make sense of the many news reports pummeling them.

Just today at the 3:45 p.m. Page One meeting, in which editors sketch out a plan for our most important page, we discussed what would be fresh and helpful for readers in the Madison area about the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

It's about 11 p.m. in Pakistan now. By the time we go to press on our final edition at 1 a.m., they will just be getting up in Pakistan. What fresh news might be generated during the Pakistani night hours when our news cycle is alive? Not much.

But believe me, cable stations will be chattering through the night and come morning they will have live feeds from reporters on the scene. The big news will  likely be the date of elections, now delayed by Bhutto's death.

Eventhough we don't pretend to be national and international experts, we are very interested in the kind of news that the State Journal can offer. My biggest question about this tragedy is not when the Parlimentary elections will take place. I want to know in this era of globalization in which countries are becoming more similar to each other, how will the United States respond? Will we become more similar to Pakistan or will Pakistan become more similar to us? Because the  State Journal can't afford to send reporters to Pakistan, we await an analysis from our wires services, McClatchy-Tribune, the Associated Press and The New York Times.

We know we can give readers the most timely and vibrant news about the Madison region. So we'll focus on that. The rest of tomorrow's page reflects concerns and some good news about south Central Wisconsin. We even ask readers every day to vote one story onto Page One. The choice for tomorrow threw me for a loop. Pick it the paper tomorrow and see for yourself!