Two years ago, when Scott Rosenberg tried to put his e-mail address at the bottom of his San Francisco Examiner column, the paper's mainframe computer read the unfamiliar "@" sign as a control code and deleted it. That won't happen anymore. These days, more and more print journalists, either by their own initiative or on the prompting of editors, are appending their personal e-mail addresses to their work.

One fan is Newsweek's Wall Street editor, Allan Sloan (sloan@panix.com), who cites the reaction to a short piece he wrote in January 1996 about corporate downsizing as an example of e-mail's value. "After the story appeared, I received a large volume of candid, insightful e-mails from middle and upper management executives who were living with rage and fear. I could see that these were mostly politically conservative men angry at the way they were being treated by their companies." A month later, Sloan wrote a cover story ("Corporate Killers") for Newsweek examining the downsizing phenomenon. The e-mail response to the first article, he says, "helped us see that we were onto something."

Sloan normally receives about forty-five e-mail messages a week from readers in the U.S. and abroad, and all told they usually take ninety minutes to answer.

Not that e-mail works for everyone. An editor at People suggested Mitchell Fink try putting an e-mail address at the bottom of his gossip column, "The Insider." Most of the messages were unsubstantiated anonymous tips, press releases, or inquiries on "how can I e-mail a Gene Wilder or a Demi Moore." Fink decided to pull the plug after a year.

But Fink is an exception. Almost everyone contacted for this piece says that offering his or her e-mail address has turned out to be a net positive.

ROBERT SCHEER, contributing editor, Los Angeles Times (rscheer@aol.com):

"In general, the e-mail response to my column has been thoughtful, informative, and representative of a broad range of opinions. I have been corrected, turned on to new column subjects, and amused by most of the response. It is great that the mail starts minutes after the L.A. Times hits people's doorsteps, which makes one feel somehow relevant as a print journalist in this day of television blather. But best of all, through e-mail my column gets posted on bulletin boards all over the world and that vastly expands my readership."

VIRGINIA I. POSTREL, editor, Reason (vpostrel@aol.com):

"I know from the volume as well as the content of e-mail which of my columns really resonated with readers and which were less than earth-shaking. E-mail is much less formal and official for readers. Letters to the editor, in particular, are almost always written out of anger, either at the author or at the subject of the piece, or they're done to publicize the letter writer; one of these two motives seems to be necessary in order for people to muster the necessary labor. E-mail, by contrast, communicates a much fuller range of responses."

LAURIE ROBERTS, columnist, The Arizona Republic/Phoenix Gazette (robertsne@aol.com):

"It's quick, it's painless (except for the messages from the critics, of course), and besides, it's fun. Sort of like those childhood days when we used to string two cans together to talk on our `private line.'"

BRIT HUME, chief Washington correspondent, Fox News, and computer columnist (72737.357@compuserve.com):

"I sometimes get corrections and updated information for my computer column. As for TV stuff, I'm sensitive to questions of fairness, and am always on the lookout for complaints about that issue. Unfortunately, people who call me up in anger tend to (a) not leave their names, and (b) not be very specific. Internet users tend to be more specific."

CHRISTOPHER BYRON, columnist, The New York Observer (cbscoop@aol.com):

"If I get something wrong, I know about it instantly."

BRAD GOLDSTEIN, computer-assisted reporting editor, St. Peterburg Times (bgoldstein@sptimes.com):

"We did a project last year on the highly lucrative fire and police pensions in Florida. The series had all of our e-mail addresses. It was invaluable. We knew about a lot of the sweetheart bills that the public safety unions were pushing up in Tallahassee, but after the stories started running, lobbyists in the state capital began sending us e-mail about other bills that had carefully crafted wording which would make pensions even richer. Phone calls are also encouraged. But e-mail is immediate."

HOLLY HEYSER, reporter, San Jose Mercury News (hheyser@sjmercury.com):

"The wonderful thing about e-mail is that I get to deal with the communication on my own terms. If the information is useless, I don't have to waste a lot of time being polite and saying `Uh huh. Uh huh. Thanks but no thanks.' And if it's valuable, I can deal with it when I have time, instead of possibly wounding a caller by saying, `You know, I'm really interested, but I'm way past deadline and just don't have time to talk to you right now.'"

DANIEL KADLEC, columnist, Time (kadlec@time.com):

"Through e-mail, I have built a library of people out in the world who I can get in touch with to provide different perspectives on financial stories.... It's extra input."

BRYAN DENSON, reporter, The Oregonian (bryandenson@news.oregonian.com):

"The bottom line is this: the more mail we get, the wider we have cast the nets and the better we do on follow-up stories. I don't know about you, but I'll take any leg up I can get."