"Nobody even wants to be on the front page,'' one says. "They just don't want to be in the line of vision for the front page. There are [even] people who are leery about being on the cover of metro.''

A second group, composed largely of mid-level editorial managers and those above them, seem enthusiastically behind Witt's plan. "There are some high-ranking editors who [have] deeply bought into this and think newspapers are failing to get young readers particularly -- that unless we make drastic changes, we'll be dinosaurs,'' a staffer said. "That's the message that has gone out, and a lot of people are buying into it.''

Star-Telegram staffers aren't alone in worrying about the direction their newsroom leaders are heading. A recent study by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that journalists have less confidence in news execs and great concern about how business considerations impact news coverage.

"There is a manifest and widening gulf between journalists and the people they work for,'' Bill Kovach, chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists, and Tom Rosenstiel and Amy Mitchell, directors of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, wrote about the study. "In general, journalists have less confidence in their bosses than they did a year ago.''

Journalists, the trio wrote, "fear more than ever the economic behavior of their companies is eroding the quality of journalism. In particular, they think that business pressures are making the news they produce thinner and shallower.''

While the Fort Worth daily may be the largest U.S. paper to incorporate a regular story ban on its front pages, others have experimented with the format. Star-Telegram staffers were told that two obscure Midwest newspaper had implemented similar changes. And Kenny Irby, a former page designer and photographer who now works with the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, said some Latin American and European newspapers have banished traditional stories from their front pages. Additionally, Irby said, some papers in the U.S. temporarily have adopted the no-story-on-the-front-page format on days when breaking news overwhelmed the traditional format -- such as in the days following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

"If there is a surprise, it's that there have been so many holdouts," Irby said. In his view, many news stories are too long and jumps too hard to find. "Visual journalists in the newsroom have wondered why their writing colleagues have not heeded their concerns. Not wondered, but agonized over.''

What's happening at the Star-Telegram may also be the result of an ongoing struggle in many newsrooms across the country between writers on the one hand and photographers and designers on the other. The dominance that wordsmiths enjoyed in newsrooms 20 years ago has faded as newspapers, pushed by the flashier visuals of television and the web, have given increasing prominence to photos, graphics, and other artwork.

Whether Star-Telegram readers will embrace Witt's vision is uncertain.

"You're a newspaper. You've got to have a news story of some sort," said the media professional who has followed the paper for decades. "The Star-Telegram has made the transition from a West Texas regional paper to an urban newspaper. Right now they have a pretty good product. This is more than tweaking, This is revamping. If they're revamping a good product, you have to wonder if they know where they're going."