A group of editors came into our daily 3 p.m. news meeting on July 11 with a handful of good stories for Page One, but nothing really worthy as the top contender to lead the paper.

Our choices included a new study showing that business optimism in Hawai'i is low, new details about an investigation into the Bureau of Conveyances, and a story out all day that showed Hawai'i was tops in life expectancy. Lady Bird Johnson had died early that morning and retrospectives on her life had been circulating throughout the day.

But Sports Editor Curtis Murayama had an ace up his sleeve: Reporter Ann Miller had exclusive news that 16-year-old Tadd Fujikawa was turning professional. It wasn't surprising because Miller and others on the sports staff have cultivated a great relationship with the Fujikawa family — and it seemed a surprising development that many readers would enjoy.

We don't often place sports stories on Page One, although we have done it occasionally when it makes sense. Sometimes we'll ask a sportswriter to do a takeout on sumo wrestling or highlight Michelle Wie's problems or spotlight Herman Frazier's day at the Legislature or call attention to what makes Colt Brennan tick because that's what people are talking about.

If everyone had the news of Tadd's decision, then it probably would have been an item at the top left-hand "rail" that tells readers what's inside or maybe something small at the bottom of the page. But when you have something nobody else has, it's worth trumpeting in a significant way. So that's what we did, adding the words "exclusive details" at the top to call even more attention to the story.

Did it feel a little different? Yes, but some days you should try for another look. Many readers, particularly younger readers, find newspapers boring, if they bother to pick up newspapers at all. This might have attracted a few younger readers or sports fans who normally wouldn't look at The Advertiser.

Would it appeal to everyone? Of course not. We knew we'd hear from readers who wondered if we hadn't lost our minds. One older man was so apoplectic that he insisted we pick up a copy of the front page to make sure we knew what we had done. He made it clear that playing the story this large on the front page was unacceptable.

A Kane'ohe man sent a letter chiding us for putting important news inside to make room for Tadd Fujikawa.

"We are proud and inspired by Hawai'i's latest teen-aged sports phenom, but we prefer to see stories about Tadd on page D1 of the Sports Section, not as the banner headline article on the front page," he wrote. "In contrast, 'NRC licenses phony firm to buy "dirty bomb" items' on page A16, and 'Bin Laden, al-Qaida active, CIA says' on page A13 are of such import that these items should have been on the front page."

The letter concluded: "Treat your readership with the respect we deserve. We are sufficiently akamai and involved in what is going on in the world to be able to chew on news with some real meat."

It's easy to debate news judgment. It's what we do all day and nobody is really right when it comes to arguing the most important stories of the day. Certainly the stories our Kane'ohe reader thought most interesting could have made Page One. In fact, when we have six or seven editors in a meeting and we come up with our lists of the top five or six stories, it's impossible for everyone to come up with identical lists.

But on July 11, the Tadd Fujikawa story was on everyone's list and we all knew we were going to play it big. As it turns out, it was the story everyone else in the media world was chasing the next morning.