Every year at this time, the Daily Herald comes to you with a humble request and the trepidation of a high school student at midterm. We want to see how you grade us on a range of characteristics linked to quality and credibility.

Our Reader Report Card first appeared in the fall of 2000, born out of a national survey that identified several key factors that affect reader trust in newspapers. Since then, the Internet has changed the newspaper landscape significantly. As a result, newspapers have begun to change how they develop and present stories, and the transformation only promises to become more profound.

Just this week, Daily Herald editors assessing our Web presentation launched into a spirited debate when one piece of a two-part project found itself among the most-often read stories of the day. The story, "Leaving the gay lifestyle behind," told of a man who says his religious faith enabled him to reject his homosexuality. In the print product, it ran alongside the story of a minister who refused to deny his.

The stories, both by Daily Herald staff writer Jim Fuller, were played together in an effort to engage readers with a thoroughly balanced examination of faith and homosexuality. But only one of the stories attracted enough attention on the Web to make it onto the list of most-read stories, leading some editors to fear that online readers would see only that headline and think the Daily Herald was promoting a particular point of view.

Others, however, led by Editor John Lampinen, insisted the system merely accomplished something we newspaper people have been saying we wanted for years -- to let readers determine for themselves the stories they consider most interesting or important.

That kind of reader-initiated news selection promises to become even more important in years to come. A study reported this week by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, found that online news presentation sites, like Yahoo News, that base their presentation on the constantly changing selections of stories by readers show dramatically different home pages than sites that present stories based on what editors think readers will or should care about.

In this new environment, credibility and trust -- always at the core of our relationship with you -- become even more critical. So, we're anxious to see how the relationship is evolving with the technology. If you've filled out the report card before, you'll notice that we've expanded it this year to add elements related to our Web presence. But regardless of whether this is your first time grading us or your eighth, we value your feedback. Thanks for taking the time to help us grow.