Age is counted in many ways.

For newspaper readers, the measure of being older would be recalling the days of multiple newspapers in midsize and larger cities.

When the Times and Free Press merged in 1999, loyalists of the battling morning and afternoon editions held out hope that the next day they would awaken to a new world order still consisting of two newspapers. Similar to Bush 41, the desires went unanswered.

Diehards to this day refer to the Chattanooga Times Free Press as either the Times or the Free Press; some habits and allegiances are hard to leave behind.

In the years since the Chattanooga newspapers merged, the conversation shifted away from the newspaper left standing and to the Internet. This conversation predominantly is led by newspapers linked by chains. Ownership holds these newspapers together. The communities served are measurably different in size, makeup, location and interests, making it a struggle to understand how a newspaper anchored in a Midwestern city can mirror one that is in the Northeast or Pacific Northwest.

When you tell readers that resources are being shifted online, that Web-based publications and not the printed product will be the emphasis, is there a reason to be surprised when newspaper readership numbers tumble? Readers are following what they are told.

For example, the echo chamber rebounds with the words that no one reads the stock tables in the newspaper, so take them out. That is followed with claims that no one reads the business section, so blend it into another section. Conventional wisdom is that only a handful of readers are affected, but to paraphrase the late Sen. Everett Dirksen of Illinois: A reader here and a reader there and pretty soon it adds up to real numbers of readers.

Not too many people enjoy paying the same amount of money and being told they will receive less — a strange business model that has not been employed at the Times Free Press.

Recounting the five years that American soldiers have been in Iraq, the boilerplate approach found in many newspapers was to grab The Associated Press account of President Bush’s speech, throw in a few comments from members of Congress, and dress up the presentation with pre-drawn graphics. As a traveler moves across the country, stopping to catch a glimpse of the day’s news, in many instances the news would be packaged the same — so much for the worn-out slogan of being “hyper-local.” Surely that phrase was contrived for some analyst’s presentation, because it is difficult to find it in practice.

The Times Free Press took a detour.

We shared the writings of our journalist who was embedded for nine months with area National Guard soldiers. We recalled the different regional units deployed in Iraq at different times. We reported on area soldiers who had lost their lives in combat. We created a five-year timeline that included key national events mixed in with those tied closer to home. And we offered a series of front pages from the Times Free Press, including the day that an area soldier asked then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld why American soldiers were sent into combat without the best armor protection. In the five years in Iraq, the Times Free Press has become better equipped to share additional and archived material with our readers via www.timesfreepress.com.

That is how a major event is brought home to readers using today’s media platforms together and not giving one heightened importance. Perhaps that is an example of working for readers — another topic for another time.