New Year’s is a time to reflect for most of us. We look back to see if we accomplished the goals we set for ourselves 12 months earlier and craft new ones for the upcoming year. I look back at the goals of The Examiner for 2007 and ask: How did we do?

Our No. 1 goal was to become more relevant for you, our readers. That meant focusing on delivering local news you could use — and digest in about 20 minutes. Another important goal was to improve our delivery. And we wanted to give our advertisers the best medium to reach their most coveted customers. You!

Here’s what we accomplished, according to an independent audit. More people are reading The Examiner daily than anything else in Maryland. Ninety-two out of 100 households we deliver to read us five days out of six — an improvement of 15 percentage points from The Examiner’s first six months.

Delivery accuracy improved to 98 percent because of the tireless efforts of Mike Barnum, who starts each day in the wee hours, tracking and verifying 251,000 home and single-copy deliveries that reach 424,535 adults on an average day — the most in Maryland. Our men and women in circulation take great pride in delivering our product to you and always want to be the first to your home.

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We achieved this not only by breaking important stories on police and government corruption, but also by bringing you good news about people helping others and poignant stories like the “No Greater Love” series — organized by intern Laura Duffy and edited by tireless wordsmith Michael Marlow — about local heroes who paid the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of us all.

Other media paid attention. Reporters Luke Broadwater and Stephen Janis frequented Ed Norris’ top-rated CBS radio program to give those of you who might have missed the paper another take on the day’s events.

We shared with you one-on-one interviews with people who shape our daily lives — Attorney General Doug Gansler, Sen. Barbara Mikulski, and Gov. Martin O’Malley among them.

We added a new sports “columnist,” Bimbo the Chimp, who impresses us weekly with her football picks — beating local and national celebrities. We covered local high schools and colleges daily, as education is a primary focus of your life, and reporter Kelsey Volkmann profiled colleges and universities throughout the state to make college choices easier for you and your children.

We took stands about issues you care about — opposing tax increases, supporting slots and criticizing government waste.

We ran columnists who challenged, infuriated and hopefully made you smile — Michael Olesker, Bill Sammon, Walter Williams, Matt Palmer and Anne Boone-Simanski. And we gave you stories from our budding journalists — many of whom grew up in the communities they cover.

Lastly, 2,400 businesses or individuals decided to advertise with us monthly — realizing we bring readers to restaurants and sell homes, cars, electronics, clothes and services from law to home repair.

We feel very good about what we have accomplished thanks to you, our readers and advertisers. But we are not complacent, nor will we ever be.

We know you have many options for news, and for our advertisers, many choices about where to place your ad dollars.

For those reasons we vow to be more local and more compelling so that more of you choose to read us and rely on us to stay informed about your communities. Part of that means participating in local events and partnering with charities to help make our communities more livable for everyone.

Last year we sponsored Susan G. Komen’s Race for the Cure, which broke its participation record by more than 30,000 runners and walkers, and Hon Fest, Fells Point Festival, Towsontown Festival and Wine in the Woods. Through our philanthropic efforts, we have given back to our community to a number of nonprofits — and look forward to more partnerships in 2008.

Thank you for reading us, and thank you for supporting our advertisers. And thank you to every member of the staff, whom, due to a lack of space I can not name, for their tireless efforts to make my first year as publisher one to cherish.

From myself and all of my colleagues at The Baltimore Examiner, I wish you all a Happy New Year!

Michael Beatty is publisher of The Baltimore Examiner. mbeatty@baltimoreexaminer.com