On Mondays, this page prints an eclectic assortment of comments that online readers contributed during the previous week to World stories posted on wenatcheeworld.com.

Like most other articles from the paper, that compilation of comments is posted online. Last week, in a bit of twisty intertwining of media, an online reader made a comment on the comments that had originated online and then were compiled in the printed Wenatchee World and then posted online.

That little episode serves to illustrate a couple of points:

1. The distinction between what's printed in ink and what's transported via pixels is ever harder to make, and maybe doesn't matter that much anyway;

2. More and more, readers aren't just consumers of newspaper Web site and newspaper content — they're producers of it.

Traditionally, community members' contributions to newspaper content have been limited. Safety Valve letters, for example, or the occasional guest column or spot-news photo. You could also count as provided content classified ads and memoriams, which frankly are often much more interesting to read than staff-produced obituaries.

Lately, though, this newspaper has been more liberal and proactive in seeking and using words produced not by World staffers, but by people outside our walls, who aren't journalists.

Those comments on stories are one example, both online and in the paper. In print, you can find other examples in special sections we produce, such as the quarterly Thrive! or NCW Greenways. Or in our Sports section, where recreation league results are posted online by participants then sifted for publication in the paper.

Several community members write blogs on wenatcheeworld.com, and we've used selected exerpts on paper in our Neighbors and Sports sections as well, and even articles on events submitted by community members involved in them.

These are experiments, to a degree. We're feeling our way along with arms extended, but eyes open. But I believe they're also inklings of our future, when the newspaper will be much more of a hub of the community and much less of the we-talk, you-listen medium, the one-way loudspeaker that newspapers have been for decades.

Beyond building community, using reader-contributed material in the newspaper helps us fulfill a primary aim: to be an intensely local newspaper that views the world from our readers' perspective.

If anything, contributed stories will supplant with unique local content what would have been wire-service state, national or international stories. They will not elbow out staff-produced local news.

Newspapers face economic realities that require us to be ever more efficient, but also fiercer in defending those duties we consider sacred, such as watchdogging government and informing the electorate. Hard news is at the core of what we do as journalists, and we don't intend to relinquish our responsibility to pursue it.

But some other things — content already in the newspaper or new types of news in the future — can be provided by laypeople.

Interesting questions about standards and credibility lay ahead. We already apply somewhat different editing standards for online material than we exercise in print, for example. But there's a limit. Where is it?

How do conflict-of-interest concerns that rightfully restrict the activities of hired staff translate to community members who volunteer their work? How do we qualify folks to be regular contributors? And how much can we count on the willingness of the community to take part in this new approach?

These and many more questions are before us. We'll proceed quickly but thoughtfully, and always mindful of our bedrock ethical standards. Those are not negotiable.

But it's a new world, and it'll be a new World, as we embrace what overall we hope will be a greater and more intimate connection with the people we're here to serve. And at the end, a better newspaper, in print and online.

<p>Reach Managing Editor Gary Jasinek at 665-1176 or jasinek@wenatcheeworld.com.</p>