What does the new N&O editor see? More online, more watchdog

Last month, John Drescher was appointed executive editor of The News & Observer, overseeing the paper's news coverage and staff of more than 200 journalists. Drescher grew up in Raleigh and, after stops at several other newspapers, returned to his hometown newspaper as managing editor, the No. 2 newsroom job, in 2002. I thought readers would like to know more about Drescher's plans, priorities and thoughts about The News & Observer. Here are excerpts from my interview with him last week, edited for space:

Q What kinds of changes might the readers expect under this new editorship?

A I don't think they'll see dramatic new change. I've been the No. 2 editor here for the last five years. I'm not an outsider, and I've been a part of just about everything we've done. I think we have a lot of momentum both in print and online, and I'm just going to try to keep up that momentum.

Q Do you have longer-term vision, expectations, hopes for The News & Observer?

A When you look at both the short term and the long term, you have to think about how we're going to succeed online, and we have a lot of momentum there. The new triangle.com site is really innovative. It shows that we're not just a newspaper anymore; we're a news and information company. You'll see us putting a lot more databases online, a lot more useful information online, calendars and things like that.

From a news standpoint, you'll see us break more and more news online. Three or four years ago we were probably doing five updates a day. Now we're pretty consistently getting 30 to 40 news updates a day, and that will continue.

At the same time, the print paper needs to evolve. We've talked about -- but not really done it enough -- recognizing that often our readers already know the basic news nugget, and we have to find a way to bring some fresh angle into that story.

Q So The News & Observer will become in effect similar to a second-day paper; as opposed to breaking news, it would be the follow-up on the online news?

A We'll still break news in the paper. If it's a story that we're first on and the public doesn't know, you can take a more straight-ahead approach. But on a news story that we've had online all day we have to bring something fresh to tomorrow's paper. [He cited a recent fire in a complex with Latino residents.] We took the basic news story and put it inside, and the 1A display was about how, for these Latinos, there were certain documents that were the lifeblood of their existence and in this fire the documents had been lost. It was a different cut on the news, and in that case I think we executed it very well. We need to do that more often on a story that's already widely known.

Q One of the challenges facing the newspaper industry in general and The News & Observer in particular is a change in the economic environment. The News & Observer has lost staffing over the time you've been here as managing editor. But at the same time you're trying to enhance what you're doing online. How do you make all that work?

A We are having to do more with less, and we're up to the challenge. We've got a really smart, talented staff. The staff recognizes that we need to adjust to a new age, and we're going to do it. We're going to have to let go of some things so that we can adjust our priorities to what's most important to us.

Q When you say let go of some things, you mean not cover some areas? Not include the same sections in the paper?

A Our goal is to maintain our quality, and I'm willing to let go of some things to maintain our quality. I'll give you an example. We have two Sunday feature sections now, Arts & Entertainment and Sunday Journal. Sunday Journal was a wonderful section. But all these sections need to be updated, and they need to change with the times. It's really time for Sunday Journal to change. So we're going to take those two feature sections, and we're going to merge them into one section, and I think it'll be one section that's better than the two we have right now. It's going to include substantially more content on lifestyle, about how people live their lives and how they want to live their lives.