Mammas, don't let your babies grow up to be circulation directors?

As most people were paying attention to the election results this past week, another story generated a substantial amount of talk within the newspaper industry. The Audit Bureau of Circulation released figures showing a significant drop in circulation.

ABC, which ensures that newspapers count circulation in a uniform manner, said the numbers dropped 2.6 percent for paid weekday circulation in the spring and fall months of this year compared with last year. Sunday circulation dipped 3.5 percent.

Unfortunately, the numbers are in keeping with recent trends.

So where are the readers going? In many cases, they're heading to our newspaper Web sites, the overwhelming majority of which are available for free.

A separate report that looked at combined print and online readership at 88 major newspapers found that about half had stayed stable or even grew.

The Citizen is not much different. We've experienced a gradual decline in paid print circulation, but the daily traffic at our Web site, www.auburnpub.com, has grown considerably.

We're certainly happy to see more people checking us out online, but we want to reverse the trend with the print product.

One strategy that we're trying to employ is to develop more content for the Web site that is unique to that medium, rather than simply stuff it with the content from the print edition. The idea is to get people to see value in both products.

We're just getting started in that direction, but it's clear that's not the entire solution. It's probably not even close to the entire solution.

That's where you come in.

If we and other newspapers are really going to stabilize our print readership, we need to take a hard look at the product itself. What services does the newspaper fail to provide?

We can make educated guesses about the answer to that question, but we really need to hear directly from readers and non-readers.

Now if you're reading at this point, near the bottom of a column in the Saturday edition, my guess is you're probably a fairly regular reader. We definitely want to hear your thoughts on what the print edition should be doing differently, but I'd also like to ask if you could share this column with people you know who don't read the newspaper.

Why did they stop reading and what would bring them back?

This is a battle for all newspapers, and it's one that we cannot win without actively listening to people outside the industry.

Executive editor Jeremy Boyer's columns run Saturdays in The Citizen and he can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 231 or jeremy.boyer@lee.net