At the opening of the 2008 legislative session Wednesday, our elected leaders spoke about breaking out of the status quo and doing things differently.

We feel the same way about the way we cover the Legislature.

Nobody likes reading about the incessant power struggle between Republicans and Democrats or party infighting. And we're not crazy about political spin and press conferences.

The state has serious issues — many of them mentioned Wednesday, such as the lack of affordable housing, our overreliance on imported fossil fuels, the deplorable state of University of Hawai'i facilities and an uncertain economy — and we need to be able to cut through the rhetoric and let readers know how issues that matter to them are faring.

About a month ago, editors met with state government reporters Derrick DePledge and Treena Shapiro and compiled a list of the issues that legislators were tackling. From there they looked at four key matters that would have the most impact on readers.

We had in-depth profiles of those issues last week: getting healthcare to rural areas, the spread of invasive species, the use of alternative energy to protect the environment and the push for early-childhood education. The latter installment had to be changed when news broke that the education initiative might be pre-empted or delayed by the need to find money for UH repairs and maintenance.

The Sunday package a week ago contained two open pages of information, including bios of all 76 legislators, a guide to the Capitol's Web site, how to submit testimony by e-mail, answers to some commonly asked questions about the Legislature and other tidbits.

Our popular blog "Capitol Notebook" is back and can be found online at www.honoluluadvertiser.com. It includes all our daily and weekend coverage as well as a legislative roster, the status of bills and documents, a list of statutes and even a blog for the House of Representatives. Political experts Dave Shapiro and Jerry Burris weigh in with their own blog entries.

During the opening of the session, we updated our Web site with breaking news from the Legislature and included PDFs of the speeches from the House and Senate leaders. Our print edition covered the landscape and our editorial page provided speech excerpts from the House speaker, the Senate president and their minority leader counterparts.

"What we hope to do with our coverage of the legislative session is highlight the issues with the broadest impact on readers and cover them from the perspective of our readers," said David Butts, local news editor. "We also look for issues that may be controversial or offbeat. We try to avoid stories that get bogged down in the process of making laws and focus instead on the relative merit or demerit of bills."

Several years ago, reporters and editors agreed to avoid overcoverage of party politics and spend more time drilling down to the issues at hand and whether or not they make good policy or have a chance of passing. Thousands of bills get introduced each session — some meaty and some frivolous — and it is our duty to bypass the spin and figure out their impact.

Butts calls the traditional way of covering the Capitol "show up and throw up," which essentially means reporters show up to press conferences and write down what politicians toss us.

"There is little context and even less input from residents affected by the proposals," Butts said. "Rather than let officials guide our coverage, we like to let our readers do it. If we hear (via letters to editor, postings on our Web site or phone calls) that readers are concerned about a proposed law, that piques our interest."

Now that the broad issues have been outlined, with Gov. Linda Lingle set to present her own initiatives Tuesday, we'll track what gets accomplished and continue to follow the issues that most interest you.

Mark Platte is senior vice president/editor of The Honolulu Advertiser. Reach him at mplatte@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8080.