Dealing with mail.

Originally published in Countryside Post, Issue 1.11.

Jill has been speculating all bloody week about who Yvonne Wright might be. Since Ms. Wright stuffed her letter in the Post’s mailbox and left, without the courtesy of including a number nor address, and since no one we know knows her, I’ve been referring to her as “Ms. Wright—if that is her real name.” It probably is.

Jill just wants to know how on earth we managed to tick her off so much. I don’t speculate on things like that. It’s a waste of time. I expect hate mail in the course of this job—there is always going to be someone you rub the wrong way, no matter how much you try to do everything right. If she had a legitimate concern, and presented it as constructive criticism, I would address the problem and see if I could solve it. But she had neither, so that’s that.

Big dead animals.

Originally published in Countryside Post, Issue 1.10.

In this space I often mention the complaints Countryside Post gets, and I apologize for them. This week, I'm offering no apologies for something we ran. Young David Martin shot his first deer recently and proudly submitted a picture of it to the Post, and we ran it on page 5 last week.

Since then we've received five phone calls from people who, for various reasons, do not wish to see dead animals in their paper. I can understand where they're coming from; deer are cute and friendly and it's not nice to see one of God's creatures butchered like that. On the other hand, we've been running pictures of dismembered animals in our supermarket ads… but then again, deer have better publicity. Disney never made a cartoon about a baby cow.

News sometimes isn't pretty. Sometimes it's horrible. Take that horse some psychos set on fire the day before Halloween. We almost ran a photo of it. Why? Because it was news. Insane behavior, when it affects other people, is news. I prefer good news, but sometimes the public has to know bad stuff whether they like it or not.

Slow growth issues.

Originally published in Countryside Post, Issue 1.9.

If this issue seems to have a lot of ads, it’s ’cause it does. As you know, the reason you get Countryside Post free is because advertising pays for everything.

That’s the way newspapers work. Even the ones who take subscriptions work that way—in their case, subscriptions just pay for the cost of circulation. In the Post’s case, we eat that cost. That’s partly because I believe that news is free and should remain so—if you’re gonna call news-reporting "a public service," it’s not public if you charge for it—and because if you circulate to everyone, you’re not so dependent on circulation figures that you have to resort to harebrained schemes to increase circulation. Nor do you have to appeal to "the nobility of journalism" or being "the voice of the community" in order to get customers. That’s a load of bull dooky anyway, and we all know it. Advertisers want numbers, and if we circulate to everyone, we got ’em.

The 𝘗𝘰𝘴𝘵 endorses…

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.

Who am I? Why am I here?

Originally published in Countryside Post, Issue 1.7.

I used that quote from Admiral James Stockdale (you might remember the 1992 vice-presidential debate) to describe this column. I never really explained what it is. I assumed the title “Letter from the Editor” would tell you that it was a letter from the editor—not an editorial, nor an opinion piece. Basically, it’s meant to tell you some of Countryside Post’s behind-the-scenes stuff; stuff that doesn’t ordinarily work its way into articles but are kinda informative anyway.

I know, it’s something you’ve not seen in other newspapers before. That’s how we do things around here. Since the only thing editors seem to write anymore are editorials, some of you assumed this was an editorial. It’s an honest mistake. For someone who’s supposed to be responsible for some good balanced reporting, editors are awfully opinionated fellas, aren’t they? Wouldn’t newspapers improve dramatically if the person on top was the least opinionated?

Some cheese with your whine?

Originally published in Countryside Post, Issue 1.6.

Last week I was on the verge of gushing as I wrote about the people who just love their little paper. This week, the other side of the story. Some have complained that the Post covers too much school stuff and they want to see some articles about south county property development. Some have complained that the Post is, by publicizing Lake of the Pines events, encouraging undesirables to enter their gated community. (Tell the people who send us press releases, okay?) Some have complained that all the news is too “soft,” or “fluffy,” or “happy,” and that they want crime news, or government corruption news, or investigative pieces.

Those are the problems. Here's the solution. Unlike other newspapers, the Post publishes contributions from its public. If you contribute articles about the things you're interested in, you'll see them in the Post. Complaining won't get you anywhere; action will. But in my experience, most complainers are just whiners, and whiners are all talk. God forbid you should actually do something—there'd be nothing to whine about!

Anyway, keep sending those articles to the Post. We still publish everything you'd like to contribute—even whining.

Your little paper.

Originally published in Countryside Post, Issue 1.5.

Lots of people have said they love “your little paper,” and I haven’t been quick enough to remind them it’s their little paper, so I apologize. Response has been very positive. One wasn’t; some fellow wasn’t getting his Foothill Trader and called the Post, of all things, to complain. He said he liked the Trader better, which I’m sure the Trader would be just thrilled about if only he had called them. Guess the Post doesn’t have enough ads. We’re working on it.

Some discussions have dealt with my editorial philosophy; seems people have noticed the Post isn’t like other papers, and not just ’cause it’s small, comes in the mail and doesn’t carry canned news. A lot of that has to do with my religious convictions about what’s right to print and what isn’t. I didn’t get a B.A. in theology for the heck of it, you see. (Okay, I did. But if you seriously believe something, it ought to change the way you do things. Otherwise you’re a hypocrite.) Some of it has to do with what I did before I went back to college; when I worked for other papers and said to myself, “If I ran a paper, I’d do it this way.” Well, now I do.

My philosophy is complex, but I’ll tell you this much: there are a lot of people who confuse freedom of the press with freedom from responsibility for what they say and who it affects. I don’t. I hope you readers keep me accountable to that. Heavy part over.