“We have to ask ourselves what’s new and surprising and important to people — what we can offer that no one else can. So we put pressure on ourselves to put it in perspective or say what it means or give the back story.”

For Mr. Baquet, the ideal front page would include three or four “strong news stories that nobody else has, an investigative story, and a couple of really good reads” — for example, a sports or culture story, or an especially compelling obituary.

Some readers would like a more straightforward approach. Others believe that all that interpretation can too easily tip over into opinion. In recent weeks, readers have complained to me about what they saw as opinion creeping into news stories on Iran, Ukraine, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey.

“I read both news and opinion, but when I read a news story I prefer news alone,” said David B. Harris of Fanwood, N.J. Yet, in what may seem like a contradiction, other readers have told me that they want news stories to state clearly established truths — not to hedge with “false balance.”

It can be a fine line, but there is a difference between stating a well-established truth — for example, evolution really happened — and expressing opinion, no matter how well-informed. It’s a line that shouldn’t be crossed in a straight news story.

In my view, The Times’s most prominently displayed stories sometimes go too far in the direction of interpretation, analysis and elaborate writing. The reasonable reader, with only his coffee for assistance, might well wish that the important nugget of news would appear in the second paragraph instead of the seventh.

That reader (as opposed to a journalist who is plugged in to changing events all day long) may prefer more of the original news and less of a “second day” approach. In some cases, a breaking news article that appeared on the website all day long, frequently updated, never even makes it into the Times archive, pushed aside by the more interpretive article that appears in print the next day but where the news is obscured.