Launching a new site can be a painful experience, especially for one visited by hundreds of thousands of people a day. When the Toronto Star launched its new design, there were a number of rough edges; but in the intervening weeks, the team there has worked hard to fix them. In fact, shortly after the site’s unveiling, the Star created a comment-enabled blog to discuss the online team’s experiences and ideas.

Such openness is rare, especially in the closed world of mainstream media, and I truly hope they succeed. Inviting readers to participate with the news is one of the smartest ways to build loyalty as The Globe and Mail has found ever since we began encouraging readers to comment on the stories we publish (the success of that endeavour has caused reverberations throughout the company).

Although my year-end wrap is still to come, 2005 might just be the year the Canadian media stepped off its soapbox and back onto the streets.