I know you can manually insert a meta description tag in the page template, but then it's the same thing every time - and while I don't know the exact algorithm the search spiders use, I'm pretty sure that a whole slew of pages with identical meta description or meta keywords all get lower rankings, because it's then pretty clear that the description or keywords don't have much to do with the content of that exact page. (At least, if I were writing a search engine algorithm, I'd do that.)
Would it be possible to have scoop put a meta description tag in the page head - easiest, (I think) if non-ideal, would be to use the story_summary; better, if harder, would be to have a field when submitting stories for the author to put a 2-3 line summary for the search engines to chew on.
Similarly, a front page/section page(s)/special page(s) specific short description that the admin can set, again not for the readers but for the search engines.
The short clips that google shows, while they do give a little bit of context, don't quite tell you what the page is actually about; often if there's a meta description tag, the search engine will show that instead.
Another thing that would probably help is to use H1, H2 etc tags for headings, and not B or FONT, but that's been brought up before, and is easier for a site admin to change himself.
