If you’ve ever worked for a newspaper (I have, although longer ago than I care to admit), or if you ever watched an episode of “Lou Grant,” you know that the foundation of the editorial process is the daily budget meeting. Here, section editors meet with the brass to decide which stories get in and which don’t, which make the front page, which go above the fold. It’s the epitome of the gatekeeper model.

Here in California’s Contra Costa County, the Contra Costa Times invites readers to come sit in on the budget meeting. I’m not sure how many people do, but they can’t possibly accommodate more than a few on any given day. The Ventura County Star, on the other hand, has found another way to create transparency in the editorial budget process. John Moore, assistant managing editor for new media and technology, has started a blog that lists the daily news budget, talks about the top stories for the next day’s edition, and invites reader comment.

Steve Outing at Poynter Online points out that the blog gives competitors (that’s right, there’s competition in the news business as opposed to some vast conspiracy of the right, middle, or left) a preview of what it has planned. (I used to work for a paper just about 20 miles from Ventura, and we would have loved to know what the Star would run.)

Moore responded with thoughts about how the blog would deal with an exclusive or hot story, and Outing has posted the response.

“I believe that you can mention them in a generalized way without giving the competition enough specifics to chase the story. Besides, our message to our staff is that we publish first online and then in print with all our stories. So that exclusive should be up on the website within hours of it being mentioned on the blog. That’s in the best of all worlds, and we aren’t there yet.”

Outing also notes that letters to the editor are going straight to a blog, available for comment. The paper already lets readers comment at the end of each article.