WHAT A STORY

If you were surprised by the fever-pitch attention during the recent World Cup, you may not fully understand your readers.

In fact, American newspaper editors may have been among the last to recognize the soccer phenomenon. That's just one startling assertion in a new book by Baltimore Sun investigative reporter Jim Haner, the author of "Soccerhead," a delightful account of his involvement in youth soccer.

Haner writes that after he was dragged into becoming coach of a group of 6-year-olds in 2000, he discovered such passion that he began looking into the history of the sport and was amazed that he had missed such a phenomenon.

"It is telling that I knew almost nothing about the sport when I first became involved in it," he writes. "I had been a reporter for twenty years, working on the metro desks of major newspapers from Manhattan to Miami, saturated in information, plugged into the humming digital nervous system of the most voracious media complex in the world, at least nominally aware of every major commotion in the country. Or so I thought."

Among the news he soon discovered:

That Native Americans were playing the game with a deerskin ball well before the Pilgrims arrived and centuries before the great American sport known as baseball.

That in the early 20th century, big-league baseball, which at times rented its stadiums to soccer teams, finally decided to smother soccer to protect fan interest in baseball. Forced off of grass fields, soccer teams played on "cinder lots" in St. Louis and elsewhere.

That in 1972, only 800 high schools in America offered soccer. There are 8,000 today.

That, according to the National Federation of state High School Associations, involvement in soccer grew by 65 percent between 1987 and 1999. As we now know, interest in U.S. soccer exploded after July 10, 1999, the day the U.S. team won the Women's World Cup in Pasadena, Calif., before 90,000 fans, the largest crowd ever to witness a women's sporting event. Today, 6 million teenagers play organized soccer and "600,000 teenage jocks now wear their school colors on the soccer field," compared with 450,000 playing baseball, writes Haner.

And what is propelling the soccer craze? Among many factors, the most important may be the participation of girls.

Haner writes:

``Talk to anyone in American soccer, from the directors of the largest camp programs to the head of the smallest hometown rec club, and you will hear about `the numbers.' For girls are what gave soccer its defiant demographic gravity, the elemental force that beat back the football and baseball factions that didn't want to share their fields or budgets. Even in mostly rural Southern counties, where the tradition of Friday Night Football meant everything, soccer eventually intruded and prevailed."

Alan Shearer is editorial director of The Washington Post Writers Group

LIFTING THE FOG OF WAR

In his first column after Israel launched its retaliatory strike in Lebanon, David Ignatius expressed a thought that was on many a journalist's mind.

"Watching the events of the past few days, you can't help but feel that this is the rerun of an old movie -- one in which the guerrillas and kidnappers end up as the winners," Ignatius wrote.

Yet as Hezbollah responded with rockets trained on Israel, as foreigners scrambled to be evacuated from Beirut and other parts of Lebanon, and as Lebanese civilians packed into cars and buses to take flight from the fighting, it became obvious that this conflict was more a sequel than a rerun -- and we have no idea how it will end.

Over the coming weeks (and no doubt, months), much will be written on this latest escalation of the turmoil that has long defined the Middle East. If I were looking for answers, I couldn't think of six better resources than Writers Group colleagues Ignatius, Jim Hoagland, E.J. Dionne Jr., Alvaro Vargas Llosa, Richard Cohen and Charles Krauthammer. Over their careers, Hoagland and Ignatius have both been based in Beirut and have continued to report from the Middle East as part of their jobs as foreign policy commentators. Dionne covered the Lebanese civil war in 1983-84, and Vargas Llosa just returned to the States from a Middle Eastern trip that included visits to Lebanon and Syria. Cohen and Krauthammer have long been observers of the Middle East.

Naturally, these writers draw on their own experiences and worldviews to develop their takes and try to lift this fog of war.

Hoagland, for example, is not convinced that a wider war is in the offing.

"To understand this crisis -- and why it will not spark a broader regional conflict this summer -- you need to examine the responsibility the Lebanese bear for making theirs a disposable country," he wrote this week.

Dionne isn't so sure. "The 'international community' cannot engage in its usual dithering," he noted. "When British Prime Minister Tony Blair called ... for an international force to disarm Hezbollah, it seemed an impossibly impractical demand. But if there's something more practical than avoiding a full-scale regional war, I don't know what it is. And in this case, it will take a genuine international effort, not a narrow 'coalition of the willing.'"

In the three columns (1, 2, 3) he wrote since the fighting broke out, Ignatius pushed for more aggressive diplomacy on the part of the Bush administration. Krauthammer, however, thinks the administration should stay out of it for now and let the Israelis clean south Lebanon of Hezbollah, a terrorist organization that has become a state within a state.

Cohen looks at the conflict through the historical lens of Israel's founding. And Vargas Llosa bemoans the loss of a reborn Lebanon, so soon after the Cedar Revolution had given hope that the rebirth could accomplish glorious things.

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

WELCOME KATHLEEN PARKER

Although we didn't meet until 1999, I've always felt that I've been friends with Kathleen Parker for much longer. That's what her column, which The Writers Group will begin syndicating twice-weekly starting the week of July 24, does for you -- it's like a letter from someone you know, and trust.

That might sound easy to do, but I assure you folks, it's not. Rare are the writers who can connect so intimately with their readers. Put Kathleen in that rarified class.

She joins The Writers Group at a time when journalism, especially opinion journalism, is going through some remarkable changes, most for the good, I might add. On the opinion side, there has never been a time when so many readers have had access to so many writers, from the left, from the right, down the middle, anarchists, traditionalists, wildly partisan, strictly nonpartisan, you name it. You got an opinion? You've got a forum.

Yet that's why a columnist who runs in more than 300 newspapers (and multiply that number several times over, thanks to the Internet) is such an exception. Writers such as Kathleen help shape the debate, rather than serve as the echo chamber.

Kathleen's elegant and friendly style, her wit, and her appreciation for the intelligence of her readers make the column a conversation on the issues big and small that affect our lives. I'm thrilled that we've added such a talent as Kathleen to our award-winning list of writers, cartoonists and comic-strip artists. Welcome aboard.

FAREWELL DAVID ARDIA

Copy editors are the unsung heroes of a newspaper, but here at The Post, I'd have to give equal billing to the legal department, which operates on the novel theory of getting news into the newspaper, not keeping it out.

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

TOUCHED AT ONCE

George F. Will's moving column on the death of his mother Louise touched people in ways that few columns can. Within hours of its publication, thousands of readers e-mailed their experiences with parents or grandparents suffering dementia.

"Until we read your article, we were unable to express in words what it’s like to lose a loved one in this manner," wrote one.

``I can't think of more touching, well-written, incisive and thoughtful sentiments reduced to modern writing,'' wrote another.

Many writers poured out their experiences in moving passages. Some sent poetry they either composed themselves or carried with them during their time of grief.

This is an instance in which a national columnist created a moment that millions of readers shared. With today's fragmented media, nowhere else in the news business can so many people be touched at once.

It is a moment that was well noticed and will be long remembered.

Alan Shearer is editorial director of The Washington Post Writers Group.

ALL NEWS IS LOCAL

As editorial page editor of the Statesman Journal in Salem, Ore., Dick Hughes puts out lively opinion pages that concentrate largely on issues closest to his readers' hearts and homes. To round out his coverage, Hughes draws from a wide range of syndicated columnists, including, from The Writers Group, David S. Broder, Marie Cocco, E.J. Dionne Jr., Charles Krauthammer, Ruben Navarrette Jr., Eugene Robinson and Alvaro Vargas Llosa.

Hughes is also the type of guy you'd enjoy having a beer with. I had that occasion last fall when the National Conference of Editorial Writers held its annual convention up the road from Salem in the Rose City, Portland. The conversation was instructive.

No matter what you read or hear about journalism being in decline, about "dead tree" editions going the way of the buggy, or how the Internet is replacing newsrooms with legions of "citizen journalists" (whatever that means), hundreds of editors like Hughes are working overtime to make their papers even more relevant to the folks who rely on them -- the readers in their local circulation areas.

America is blessed with a proliferation of newspapers spread over all 50 states. Most of them range in circulation from small to medium-sized. And most of them are fiercely local. Some people in the business say way too much; others say not enough.

Let Hughes join in the debate on just how local papers should be, especially on their opinion pages. In an e-mail to his colleagues in NCEW last week commenting on our announcement that columnist Kathleen Parker was joining The Writers Group, Hughes noted: "From past listserve discussions, I know that some of you have had problems with ... syndicates not grasping the changing nature of op-ed pages, including the emphasis on localLOCALlocalLOCAL."

He went on: "But as newspapers go more LOCALlocalLOCAL, so must syndicates. For example, I'm hoping that syndicates will start distributing some columnists who focus on 'local issues' -- such as education or local government or health care -- but from a national perspective."

Alan Shearer, editorial director of The Writers Group, responded to Hughes. "We continually talk with writers about expanding the range of topics and about occasionally revealing something of themselves personally," Alan wrote. "To paraphrase Ellen Goodman, if readers feel they know something about you, they're more likely to give you the benefit of the doubt, even if they disagree with you."

Shearer added: "I am more upbeat about the future of our business than ever before. For a simple reason: Our journalism reaches 10, maybe 100 times more people than just a few years ago. Keep building that readership and advertisers will follow. Every newspaper in the land should devote maximum resources to building Web sites that are interactive, informative and, yes, entertaining. The technology is a blessing."

I agree with that. We are in a global village in which all news is local. But not every news outlet can produce local news and commentary like a local newspaper can. (And where else but a local newspaper's Web site could you find your high school alma mater's score against a big rival, 40 years and a couple of thousands of miles removed from the circulation area?)

Or as Hughes puts it in a compelling pro and con package on editorializing on international issues in the current edition of The Masthead, the journal of NCEW:

"We may not sway the U.S. presidency -- no matter who occupies the White House -- but we can change our communities. We can inspire (or irritate) residents to get involved in local and regional issues. We can point the way for decision-makers. We can root out problems in government and force changes.

"And we can have a heckuva lot of fun while doing so."

Amen.

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