The Greensboro News and Record is only a 93,000-circ. newspaper, but it isn't using that as an excuse to avoid innovation.

It's adopting blogging in a big way as part of a scheme to remake its editorial page function into something of a "public square."

An excerpt from an AP story carried by Kentucky.com:

It's a journalist's job to ask questions, but they're usually aimed at outsiders.

At the News & Record, a 93,000-daily circulation newspaper in Greensboro, reporters and editors are asking tough questions about the paper itself.

The biggest questions: If the paper needs to change to survive, what changes should be made? What can it do, especially online, to make itself the electronic equivalent of town square?

Seeking the answers, the paper has launched an audacious online experiment.

The News & Record's Web site features 11 staff-written Web journals, or blogs, including one by the editor that answers readers' questions, addresses criticism and discusses how the paper is run.

That puts the paper ahead of even much larger news organizations. The News & Record's blogs range from "just-the-facts, ma'am," to slightly spicy.

Here is some additional stuff from cyberjournalist.net. It deals with some of the ideas journalist Lex Alexander put forward to his paper's management. A sample below:

• Assign local bloggers to cover in depth some things that we don't -- e.g., community sports by team, business specialties, etc.
• Recruit a blogger for each neighborhood from among its residents, a la Waterville, NY, paper.
• "Get Me Rewrite!" -- readers re-write stories to emphasize what they believe are the salient points, or to highlight what they think was missing in the published story. Reporters and their editors review those comments to learn.
• Build wiki(s) (cf. en.wikipedia.com) on subjects, e.g., histories of Greensboro's neighborhoods.
• Interactive assignment editor: Readers suggest stories and a dedicated (e.g., this is a full-time beat) reporter does them, explaining how he did them, why he made certain decisions, etc.
• Structure Letters to the Editor as a blog, with each letter having its own permalink and comments.

And for a related post from earlier this week, check out People who are walking the citizen journalism walk.