It's been interesting to watch the chatter on the Web and in our letters columns on the Collins-Edwards story.

What's the story? Well, as everyone knows, John Edwards, the former U.S. senator from North Carolina and Democratic presidential candidate, admitted having an affair while his wife was being treated for cancer, with a woman who later fathered a child that Edwards denies is his.

Typical political sex scandal stuff. It became a local story for us, however, when U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican who is running for re-election this year, appeared on a local radio show on Aug. 14 and speculated that Edwards was really the child's father.

As evidenced by today's editorial page, comments and letters continue to pour in on this issue. Many readers either agree with Collins and believe she's merely voicing what most people are thinking. Others use it to contrast her with her Democratic opponent, U.S. Rep. Tom Allen, by criticizing Collins' record in the Senate. Still others think it wasn't news, or wasn't worth running on Page A1.

I won't debate the story's placement on the page. In terms of whether it was news, though, I think readers have spoken very clearly that it was.

This is only one measure, but at last count, the story had received over 111,000 page views at pressherald.com, and people were still commenting on it a week after the story ran. Meanwhile, an online poll picked up another 6,750 votes. One thing that really drove a lot of traffic was having our story picked up by the Drudge report.

Those are huge numbers when you consider that one of last week's biggest stories, Elbert Aull's Aug. 18 piece about Rabbi Moshe Wilansky's prayer battle with Portland City Hall, had 14,316 page views at last count.

We're planning two political debates this fall with WMTW News 8 and Central Maine Newspapers.

The debates will be held at the Hannaford Lecture Hall at the University of Southern Maine's Portland campus. The U.S. Senate candidates - incumbent Republican Susan Collins and Democratic Rep. Tom Allen - will debate on Tuesday, Oct. 14.

The candidates for the 1st Congressional District - Democrat Chellie Pingree and Republican Charlie Summers - will square off against each other on Tuesday, Oct. 28.

We held a meeting today with the folks at WMTW to talk about the format.

What we're looking at right now is similar to the gubernatorial debate we co-sponsored with Channel 8 in 2006. It'll take place from noon to 1 p.m. and be broadcast live on TV and the Internet. Questions will come from a panel of journalists, the live audience and the Web. The debate will be moderated by one of the WMTW anchors.

The 2006 debate was fast-moving and hit on a lot of topics. Because there were five candidates for governor, we had to cover a lot of ground and make sure everyone got a chance to speak.

(It was also a little surreal because one of the candidates, independent Phillip Morris NaPier, wore a large sword and kilt to the event and had to be disarmed before the State Police would let him sit next to Gov. John Baldacci. Never in a million years did I ever think I'd have to help disarm a political candidate.)

I'm guessing there won't be any swords at the Senate or House debates in October. That said, with only two candidates at each event, there should be plenty of opportunity for give and take.

Keep an eye on pressherald.com and wmtw.com for information about how to submit questions for the candidates.

Welcome to the re-launch of Behind The News!

I started this blog in the spring of 2007 as a way to interact with readers, solicit story ideas and explain some of the decision-making that goes into producing a daily newspaper and Web site.

At times, like when I explained why we held an Opus cartoon, it was a blast. The reader response was huge and the debate in the comments section was hilarious.

Other times, like when I recently talked about restructuring reporters' beats, the blog was downright dull.

So for the past several months - since May, actually - the blog has been on hiatus. And there have been other issues to contend with, as regular readers of our newspaper well know. The recent layoffs and employee buyouts have necessitated major changes in the way we approach and cover the news.

In reviving this blog, I hope to give readers some insight into how Maine's largest independent news staff practices journalism at a time when newspapers across the country are battling to survive.