Databases are an important tool for media companies to use in doing more jobs for our communities.

The primary job newspapers have done for generations has been to tell the news of the community, the nation and the world. News remains an important job, but as we seek to build larger audiences we need to do more jobs. Steve Gray, managing director of Newspaper Next, expresses one of those key jobs as "Help me get answers about this place."

One of the most encouraging signs that media companies understand the expanded role they need to play is the growing use of databases to provide answers about communities.

At a recent reception, a colleague scorned efforts by the newspaper industry in the mid-1990s to appeal to young adults.

I could join that colleague (a former newspaper editor) in criticism of many things newspapers have tried in pursuit of young readers, but he was way off in one point that he made: He said newspapers were crazy to pursue nonconsumers. Who, he asked, ever succeeded by trying to sell to nonconsumers?

"Can you imagine the automobile industry targeting people who don't drive?" he asked.

In a social setting where I didn't feel like arguing, I let the comment pass. But it's a point of view that inhibits innovation.