A recent talk with a high-ranking elected official got me to thinking about our philosophy in gathering the news and what we want to see each day on our pages.

The elected official wanted to see more stories relating to government, specifically programs that would publicize the work of government. Some of this would be in the form of covering public hearings or symposiums or press conferences where we had not sent an Advertiser reporter. The official was stressing that The Advertiser, being the daily newspaper the majority of people read, has something of a duty to keep readers informed about these events.

It's true that we must keep our readers informed, but any number of people (not just politicians) pitch us to do all kinds of stories. Some are self-serving and others benefit the community.

With all that comes at us, how do we decide what is news?

At the top of the list is breaking news such as a natural disaster or fatal traffic accident or something that needs our immediate attention. That takes first priority and we were good at mobilizing and covering the many angles of last October's earthquakes and the Kaloko dam rupture. With online demands, it's crucial that stories get posted and updated as quickly as possible. The following day's paper should provide more depth and explanation.

News can also come out of a government meeting, press conference, court hearing or press release and we do a fair amount of this coverage but that is not where we want to concentrate our efforts.

For every hour that we spend in a public hearing or in a press conference, that's one less hour we're out digging up other news that everyone else in town does not have. Reporters are so often wired into their beats that they know ahead of time what the news will be.

Some government officials like to spin the news in their favor or issue press releases to give voters the sense that they're out there doing things, even if it's nothing more than wearing a hard hat and wielding a shovel at a groundbreaking ceremony. (And yes, I know we sometimes get roped into covering a groundbreaking or two, as happened last week.) But that information seems more suited for their campaign brochures than for the daily newspaper.

We would rather distinguish ourselves on stories that provide depth and context such as our series about the homeless on the Wai'anae Coast, our investigation into healthcare at Tripler Army Medical Center, our 150th anniversary sections and our interactive online project marking the 10th anniversary of Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's death.

Last Sunday, we unearthed some good stories for Page One: the lack of promised money for the University of Hawai'i Medical School, how the Army declared four sites at Makua Valley off-limits and how lax conditions persist at an Arizona prison holding Hawai'i inmates. On Monday, we had an enterprise story on the city's plan to spend $30 million to control the stench at the Kailua Wastewater Treatment Plant.

None of those stories was generated at a press conference or through a press release. It's also a safe bet that the subjects of the stories (the Army, the city, the medical school, the private company running the prison) preferred not to see them on Page One.

More recently, we had a series of good reports on the plight of a 12-year-old girl allegedly starved by her parents. These were important stories.

Several weeks ago, I had a long-running exchange with a woman who wondered why we did not cover the May 25 "Freedom Rally" with Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich and Oliver North at the Hawai'i Convention Center. I explained that this was a paid event and questioned what kind of news was made that night. She countered that we covered the Diamond Head Crater Festival, the long-running "Bachelor" saga and other events that didn't seem to be as newsworthy. All I could tell her is there is no single set of guidelines for every coverage plan but I was pretty sure a paid-admission rally that smelled faintly of partisan politics probably didn't qualify.

It really comes down to one's definition of news. And news can be whatever is valuable information. Some of our online posts, for example, seem manini, but draw a lot of interest.

But for the most part, we would rather seek out news independently than have it handed to us.