One of the joys of Nederland is that it’s made up of people with very strong – and often conflicting – opinions. More than one former BOT member has described serving in that capacity as “herding cats.” Obviously, one of the areas where that disparity of opinion shows up most strongly is in the pages of The Mountain-Ear.
In our news coverage, we deal as objectively as possible with the day-to-day issues that inspire and infuriate locals. We cover each government meeting and present the contents of each meeting in the appropriate NEWS story. But, of course that’s not enough. Especially when one of the issues we are covering is fairly contentious. I can think of a few recently, but the current controversial issue is that of TEENS, Inc.’s proposed child care center.
We encourage our readers to contribute their own opinions through letters to the editor or “guest opinions.” We publish these as they come in, usually on a first-come, first-served basis. And we clearly label those letters or guest opinions as such, including a disclaimer noting that those letters are the opinions of the writers, not necessarily of the newspaper.
Putting a newspaper together requires a lot of people dealing with a lot of moving parts – news stories, ads, public notices, and letters. So we are under time and space constraints, asking our letter writers to submit their opinion pieces before 5 p.m. on Friday if they want their piece to be considered for the next week’s issue.
Each week, we dedicate two pages for letters. And, as we state every week in the paper, we ask that letters be no longer than 500 words. That’s about one single-spaced typed page. Most letters are far shorter, so we can print a whole bunch of them in our two pages. Occasionally – again, especially when we’re dealing with a controversial issue – letters run longer. And, when it’s necessary for clarity, we just might let one run longer. It all depends, though, on timing. And available space.
We make it very clear – in our pages, on our Facebook – just how we do this. And still, some people complain that we are “not fair,” or “not presenting all sides of the story.” If we don’t publish someone’s complaint, we’re just printing “opinion, allegations, libel,” as one reader asserted. And while I’m sure we’d edit out any “libel,” opinions and allegations have their place in The Mountain-Ear – in the letters pages. NOT in the NEWS stories.
Projecting your own negative aspects onto your opponents seems to be in vogue in today’s politics. We’re trying hard not to let that show up in our pages. Our news stories portray the actual actions of people and organizations in our area. Our letters indicate the opinions of some of the residents of the area. We try to keep them discrete. We try to keep them fair. We hope you will help. And understand.
To reach us anytime, email info@themountainear.com or call 303-881-0365. The Mountain-Ear is YOUR community source for news, since 1977.
