Originally published in Countryside Post, Issue 1.8.
…nobody. Countryside Post will not exaggerate the solitary opinion of the editor or publisher by labeling it the opinion of the paper. That’s as it should be.
It isn’t easy bottling your opinions. Especially for me. Seven years of writing editorials makes it second-nature to generate opinions at the drop of a hat. I won awards for them, believe it or don’t. But most people already have their mind made up, so what good are my two cents? The only way I could add to a discussion would be to tell them something they didn’t know. In other words, write news.
So we did, or tried to. This election the Post sent out questionnaires. To date, only Lorraine Jewett-Burdick and Todd Juvenal ever got back to us in time. In the interest of fairness I decided not to publish their responses since there was no equal comment from their opponents. I apologize for wasting their time.
Candidates just have to get used to the idea of the south county having a newspaper. Maybe part of it is because they can’t count on the Post endorsing them, since… well, you know.
…I tell you though; in accepting political ads, you never see anyone so cautious about what they write as people running for office. Even pastors (unfortunately) aren’t as careful with their text.
Partly that’s the press’ fault. We do have a tendency to take things out of context as much as their opponents, but that’s mostly because reporters aren’t as interested in what candidates are trying to say as much as what they said. It’s a legal mentality: what they said is provable, what they mean is suspect. I don’t agree with that mentality. What they mean is as much a fact as what they said. But what they said sells papers.
Lately the Post has received complaints from the humor-impaired: people who take certain off-the-cuff comments I write deathly literally. Explaining a joke doesn’t make it funny; responding, “Oh, come on, it’s a joke!” doesn’t work. Humor is always a hard call. You can’t pinpoint funny, and you can’t pinpoint not-funny. I just look at it as one of those areas where you’re not going to please everyone. Just remember to not sweat the small stuff—and remember that it’s all small stuff.
…I didn’t really say this in the last three issues, but I still mean it: If you have anything interesting or publishable, please give me a call at 268-3420.
If you don’t have anything you consider interesting or publishable, call anyway. I might just find it interesting.
—Kent Leslie, managing editor
Update, 9/4/2009: I royally managed to piss off Lorraine Jewett-Burdick. That’s what I mainly remember from this election. She figured since she was the only candidate for the county clerk who had bothered to deal with the Post, she’d have a clear advantage over her opponent. But I didn’t play ball. When she was the only county clerk candidate to fill out my questionnaire, I decided, in part because I was short on space, and in part out of fairness to the other candidates, to not print it.
Todd Juvenal, who was running for supervisor, took it in stride, but Ms. Jewett-Burdick was hugely annoyed with me. Apparently she has an master’s degree in journalism, and felt it necessary to let me know this. A lot. People only whip out their degrees when they’re trying to impress others with their qualifications. Likely she forgot that other reporters don’t impress easily. My response was, “Okay, so you understand then,” which was not the sort of cowering intimidation she was seeking.
To be fair, I really should have sent out the questionnaires and printed them long before this issue. I was shooting for the last-minute approach because most people, if they haven’t already picked a candidate, really only read up on politics the week before the elections. That week’s Post, therefore, was the Campaign Issue. But since the month before elections tends to be busy for candidates, in fairness to them I should have sent them something back in August or September, back when the Post first started.
Even so, all the school board candidates sent in their questionnaires, and were nothing but helpful. Mr. Juvenal helpfully arranged to have all his support letters come from people who lived in our distribution area when he realized I was only running letters from locals. The other candidates just pretended we weren’t there; no harm, no foul.
But Ms. Jewett-Burdick was pissed.
Can’t please everyone.