Recently appointed Executive Editor of Mercury News Dave Butler sent the following memo to the newsroom describing his vision for the newspaper. He states that their mission remains largely focused on "technology and diversity". Some important points that he made:

- The newspaper should not only be the leader for Bay area sister publications, but also the leader of "news experimentation on the Web - trying new ways to satisfy the varying needs of our readers."

- From timeliness of local stories to decision-making, there is a need to pick up the pace. If one story is finished in a day, start working on second or third.

- While making the paper the "most-compelling, interesting, lively and helpful that anyone can get", embrace the "Web-first" distribution philosophy and approach. In other words, create a unified staff instead of separating them into separate print and online groups.

- Readers want " lots of useful information quickly and they want to pick what is most important." It doesn't matter if they read the articles online, just as long as they read it from Mercury News. Consequently, a wide assortment is necessary, "in terms of subject matter, tone, emotional appeal, length and appearance."

- Evolve with the industry, meaning more useful service material, as many higher quality stories with "energy and flair" that can be produced, talking to people more for stories, better organization and planning, telling more stories in Q & A's, more graphics.

Source: Bazeley.net through Poynter Romenesko