Several months ago, I agreed to give a lecture on success in newspapers at the University of Michigan.

It’s called the Graham Hovey Lecture and it is sponsored by the Knight/Wallace Fellows program at the University of Michigan.

It couldn’t say no, since I was one of the very lucky journalists who were granted fellowships in the program 15 years ago.

And today I serve on the board of directors of the program.

Add to that a captured audience, and a subject that I like, and you’ve got me.

What sponsors of these kinds of events don’t realize is that I get much more out of what I hear than what I say.

I’ll spare you the speech, but not the response, either from the folks who attended the lecture, or the students whose classes I visited.

Speaking to one group was like preaching to the converted.

These were the current fellows and friends of the program, to whom I stressed the importance of quality in whatever a newspaper does.

So, they wanted to know, what is “quality.”

Well, defining quality brings to mind the remark of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Potter Stewart, who said of pornography that he was reluctant to define it, but that he knew it when he saw it.

What is quality in one market may not meet the test in another.

But there are some consistent ingredients.

A report focused on reader interests, newspaper investment and patience are among the most important.

What about the impact of television and the Internet?

Well, I told them that we are carefully and thoughtfully analyzing what our best approaches on the Web may be, while constantly adding to the effort. As to television, I pointed out that nearly every story at the top of the front page on a recent USA Today was available on television or the Internet the day before.

Repeating it on the front page seems silly and not very productive to me.

What do readers want in a local newspaper?

They seek depth and breadth on local topics, and credibility.

They also wanted positive stories.

Not just flattery for its sake, but stories about people doing good things.

One thing they abhor is the seemingly serial cops and crimes stories they see on local television.

My journey into undergraduate classes was fascinating.

My escort was Fara Warner, a former Wall Street Journal reporter and Knight/Wallace Fellow, who now teaches at the university.

The students were mostly juniors and seniors.

They had very interesting observations about newspapers.

First, they read newspapers.

Maybe not the way adults and confirmed subscribers read them, but there is information in a newspaper that they seek out.

They find a copy of the newspaper in a coffee shop or some other public place where they read it quickly between classes or meetings. They have a very high interest in classified sections, and news that is very useful.

Things to do on the weekends, inexpensive places to rent, possible roommates, and cheap cars were high on their list.

Their questions were surprising.

They were centered on ethics.

They wanted to know if I had ever been forced by a publisher to do a story that I didn’t want to do, or to kill a story that I thought should run.

In fact, in the three companies that I have worked for over 40 years, I never have.

What I found particularly intriguing is that their use of the Internet to get at news is also fairly low.

What they look for on Web sites is something different from a typical news report.

Finally, they seem fascinated with the idea that there is a very positive alliance between news, advertising and circulation.

No one in advertising or circulation, I told them, is telling me what stories to run any more than I’m telling them what ads they can publish or what circulation strategy to adopt.

What makes my job so interesting, I told them, is working with my colleagues in other disciplines to find common ground in our effort to build the newspaper.

It was all very interesting, and gratifying.