Charlotte Hall is editor of the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel and the president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Reach her via e-mail at chall@orlandosentinel.com.

I HAVE BEEN THINKING ABOUT newspapers lately. That sounds like a big “duh,” but in our current economic distress I wonder if we are thinking too little about our newspapers.

We think a great deal — and with excitement — about our digital products. We are forced to think way too much about whacking our newsrooms. In fact, too often we have to think about our newspapers as reservoirs of cost to draw down in the advertising drought. More and more, we are thinking about new content to generate revenue. And, of course, we think all the time about changing newsroom culture.

Here’s what I’ve been thinking about newspapers. Most important, they still deliver the biggest punch for our public service journalism. That’s partly because they also still represent, for many of us, the large majority of our audience, even where our Web sites are strong and growing. In most of our organizations, they also still make up an even larger majority of our revenue.

Newspapers remain the trunk of our organizations, journalistically and financially. We need our papers to stay strong while the saplings, the digital products, grow underneath them — and that may be a long time.

I’ve also been thinking that while we have changed everything else — new digital products, new types of jobs, new skills for reporters and editors, 24-7 breaking news online, new newsroom structures — many of our print newspapers haven’t changed much at all, except to shrink.

A couple of months ago, I looked at my newspaper and said to myself, “This is tired and old-looking.” That came shortly after my new publisher told me he wanted the paper to grow by becoming more appealing to a slightly younger group — 30- to 45-year-olds, just below the baby boomers. So we began to redesign. It is not a traditional redesign because we are focusing as much or more on changing the way we tell stories — and what stories we choose to tell — than we are on the visuals.

Trying to move a newspaper younger flies in the face of the oft-heard strategy that makes the core newspapers pretty much the province of the 50-plus crowd and relies on digital products and, in some cases, niche print products for future growth. Does that strategy lead to benign neglect of our newspapers that will hasten their decline? Print papers, I’m afraid, are fast becoming the ugly stepsister of our industry, though the digital Cinderella has yet to find her Prince Charming. (Excuse the metaphor — I live in Orlando!)

Redesigning a paper is an amazingly liberating and energizing experience. It calls out all the creativity in our newsrooms and gets us talking about how readers relate to our storytelling, how visuals mesh with words, the stumbling blocks to change, the kinks in our processes and communication, the necessity of taking risks — everything.

Redesign clears the way for reinventing our newspapers. It is also an experience grounded in hope — hope for our values, our journalistic mission and the future of newspapers.

As I have traveled this year for ASNE, two very different moments have underscored the power of print. The first came at a conference in New York about philanthropic funding of journalism. While new media people and foundation-funded journalists were throwing newspapers on the trash heap of history, leaders from issue-oriented foundations talked about the limited reach of Web journalism. They wanted exposure in newspapers.

At conference end, Carnegie Corporation of New York President Vartan Gregorian made an impassioned plea that every college student should receive The New York Times and the local newspaper free, every day.

The second scene took place in Caracas at a meeting with newspaper owners who oppose Hugo Chávez. They told us of constant harassment from the government, including one instance in which a regional paper had to shut down for several days because the government had blocked its import of newsprint.

Nonetheless, newspapers are going strong in Venezuela, with multiple voices fueling democratic discourse. While most of us would recoil at their political bent, the passion and purpose that suffuses the pages of Venezuelan papers may provide a valuable lesson for American editors.

I’m going to keep thinking about newspapers — about how to make them new, fresh, exciting, and, yes, passionate and purposeful. *