THIS IS SO COOL -- PART II

In a post last year, I noted how cool it was that Washington Post associate editor David Ignatius had joined with Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria to produce PostGlobal, an interactive feature on washingtonpost.com that invited noted experts to comment on issues of global importance -- and then encouraged readers to join in the discussion.

Well, here's something that is just as cool. Welcome to Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood and E.J.'s Precinct, two new discussion sites hosted by Post associate editor Eugene Robinson and columnist E.J. Dionne Jr.

Gene bills his neighborhood "an online discussion about culture, politics and race." E.J.'s site, with help from Post editorial page assistant Alex Remington, invites readers to "voice your views on politics, faith and equality."

Both sites draw material from recent columns by the two authors, and from breaking news. Want to get in your two cents worth? Then how about this question from E.J.'s Precinct: "Did the Democrats Sell Out on the War?" Or ponder this from Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood: "Baby Cheney's Burden." Such topics should get your juices going.

Interactivity is a big part of washingtonpost.com. In addition to Dionne, Robinson, Ignatius and Zakaria, all of whose columns are syndicated worldwide through The Writers Group, other features include Admissions 101 hosted by Post staff writer Jay Mathews, which looks at the how to play the college admissions game, and On Faith, a conversation on religion, hosted by the Post's Sally Quinn and Newsweek's Jon Meacham. Drop in at any of them for a stimulating visit.

James Hill is managing editor of The Washington Post Writers Group.

WAR WITH A CAPITAL W

Style -- which, according to Webster's, is "a particular manner of dealing with spelling, punctuation, word division" -- is part of a newspaper's soul. For reporters and their editors, it can also be the source of soul-wrenching argument.

One such argument these days concerns the present military engagement in Iraq. Is it a war? And if it is a war, how should it be identified?

Even from afar, Iraq sure looks like a war. The United States, Britain and a few other allies have a substantial troop presence, engagements with an enemy occur daily, and all sides suffer mounting casualties. It seems that no news outlet should have a problem with calling this the "Iraq War."

Yet while that name has stuck, a host of news organizations including The Washington Post and The Associated Press identify this conflict generically as the "Iraq war," leaving -- in some minds, at least -- the implication that by lowercasing the word "war," Iraq is not quite a full-fledged battle worthy of the description.

Style, however, exists in part to avoid using the language to make a political statement. So by not acknowledging Iraq as a capital W war, are not these news organizations guilty of something sinister?

Not so fast. Wars get their names through a combination of factors, not all of them clear at the time hostilities are raging. World War I could not be anything but the Great War until it was followed by World War II, which is still known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War. The Truman administration insisted that the Korean War was a "police action," and, more than a century after it ended, some Southerners are still comfortable calling the Civil War the War of Northern Agression.

One school of thought holds that the Cold War, the almost half-century competition between the United States and the Soviet Union, was really World War III. And some in that same school hold that what began that bright September morning in 2001 is not just a military response to the worst terrorist attacks this country has ever suffered, but in fact World War IV. Or, as the intellectual Normal Podhoretz says in the June issue of Commentary, "military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq cannot be understood if they are regarded as self-contained wars in their own right."

The Pentagon seems to share a similar view. If it has a preference, it is usually the Global War on Terrorism, yet the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq are officially named Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Perhaps this explains the ambiguity. Whatever you call it, the name for what is happening today in Iraq is still evolving.

That's essentially the response I got when I asked Norm Goldstein, editor of The Associated Press Stylebook, about the discrepancy, given The AP's admonition to "capitalize when used as part of the name for a specific conflict: the Civil War, the Cold War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the War of 1812, World War II, Gulf War."

"AP, too, has been lowercasing 'war' -- and consciously so -- with 'Iraq war,'" Goldstein replied in an e-mail. "It's something we've used since the beginning, despite the apparent inconsistency with the Stylebook entry. I think the only reason is that we generally leave these tags to history."

Here at The Writers Group, we decided from the very beginning that Iraq fit the definition of a specific conflict as outlined by The AP, and our copy has always presented America's military operations there as the "Iraq War." I'm stating a personal view, but it seems the capitalization is one way to endow a measure of respect for this war's fallen.

James Hill is managing editor of The Washington Post Writers Group.

LA DOLCE VITA
by Mary Fleming Svennson

Greetings from sunny Milan. I arrived here after two days in Rome. Yes, I am the fortunate sales manager whose territory includes Italy. Business travel can be a bit of a hassle these days, but it's hard to complain when your next appointment might take you past the Colosseo in Rome or the Duomo in Milan.

Italian newspapers are experiencing many of the same trends as in the US. One newsprint cost-saving change that has become popular across Europe is the switch to the "Berliner" format -- a bit larger than the standard-size tabloid. With the exception of the national financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore, it appears that nearly all the national Italian titles have gone to the Berliner or some form of tabloid format.

Most of the circulation in Italy is from newsstand sales. One program done to help increase circulation numbers and bring in additional revenue is the offer of an "extra" available for a supplemental fee with the purchase of a newspaper or magazine (you can also buy the newspaper alone, for the cover price only). These can be books, CDs, DVDs -- I joked in one director's office that I didn't know he was such a Starsky & Hutch fan, since the complete series in DVDs was sitting on his shelf -- a leftover from a recent promotion. It harkens back to the days of serial installments in US newspapers.

Well, back to my caffe latte. Ciao from beautiful Italia!

Mary Fleming Svensson is an international sales manager for The Washington Post Writers Group.

WELCOME MICHAEL GERSON

Even if you are not familiar with the name Michael Gerson, you're probably familiar with some of his more memorable phrases. Try "the soft bigotry of low expectations'' for starters.

As George W. Bush's head speechwriter and policy adviser from 1999 until 2006, Gerson continually offered up words that would define the Bush presidency, particularly Bush's commitment to "compassionate conservatism."

Beginning next week, his words will grace the op-ed page of The Washington Post and, through syndication by The Writers Group, many of America's other top newspapers. This is, shall we say, a big deal, not just because of Michael's resume, but because of his approach to the political philosophy that defines his writing and his soul. "It comes from my own background and my own reading of the history of American rhetoric," Michael explains.

People looking for boilerplate will be sorely disappointed. But people looking for a good argument will be drawn to Michael Gerson simply because he can state his case so well. His first column will appear in The Post on Wednesday, May 16, and then again on Friday, and will maintain that schedule for the foreseeable future.

James Hill is managing editor of The Washington Post Writers Group.

A FOX IN THE DOW HOUSE

Journalism and its practitioners have long been fodder for Hollywood and movie fans. My favorites are "All the President's Men" and "Citizen Kane," with a sheepish delight for the perfectly awful 1952 "Scandal Sheet" starring Broderick Crawford and Donna Reed, which used to routinely show up on late-night TV when I was working night shifts.

"All the President's Men" (1976) has a rightful claim to classic status for the simple fact that it does a better-than-average job of telling a true story -- the journalistic investigation into a break-in that eventually resulted in the resignation of a president. "Citizen Kane" (1941) can be interpreted in millions of ways (or so it seems), but it basically covers the life of a press baron. Back when the movie was made, being a press baron was a pretty big deal. Today? Well, let's just say a bigger deal would be in being Bill Gates.

Still, some press barons remain, and they have the amazing capacity to make news, seemingly just by being press barons. Here I give you Rupert Murdoch as Exhibit A. Based on his reputation alone, a movie of his life would be somewhere between "Scandal Sheet" and "Citizen Kane." Yet outside of fantasyland, Murdoch is highly respected among his fellow publishers as both a journalism traditionalist and as a business innovator. His Fox television channel, begun from scratch, not only took on the Big Three, it changed the way the National Football League and many other major sports are covered. His Fox News Channel, equally begun from scratch -- on cable television, no less -- quickly challenged and then overtook CNN in the ratings battle. His newspapers are a diversified lot, ranging from such tabloids as The Sun in Britain and the New York Post to the upmarket Times of London and The Australian.

It's no secret that Murdoch, a naturalized American citizen who now lives in New York, has long had his eyes on Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal. This week, the news got out that Murdoch wasn't just dreaming about owning the Journal, he was trying to buy it. His bid of $60 a share ($5 billion, overall) for the company not only sent Dow Jones shares upward, it got the journalistic chatter going ... and going ... and going.

Now no one knows how this is going to turn out (a majority of the Bancroft family, which has controlling rights over Dow Jones, has already said "no"). But the immediate reaction -- the conventional wisdom, shall we say? -- was that the sky was falling. Considering what has happened in media circles recently (the breakup of the Knight Ridder chain, the announced sale of Tribune Media to a buyer who will take the company private), such a reaction was highly predictable. Yet I also think it displayed head-in-the-sand thinking. It tends to ignore the fact that should Murdoch end up with Dow Jones, the market -- not journalism observers and newsroom labor union officials -- will still determine The Wall Street Journal's future.

Rather than dismissing the takeover bid entirely (pretty difficult to do when $5 billion is on the table), journalists should sit back and watch the show. After all, this one might be a classic.

James Hill is managing editor of The Washington Post Writers Group.