By Jim Sherman, Jr.
Every once in a while I believe it is important to discuss newspapers with readers. This is one of those times and I’d like to talk about opinions, how they are incorporated into a newspaper ? namely this one.
Columns, editorials, guest columns and letters to the editor are the only places where I allow opinions in my family’s newspaper. And, the only places you find opinion in my family’s newspaper are on pages six and seven (and the occasional spillover from those pages, which are jumped to pages further back). Everything else, news stories and features are accurate reports. Occasionally there will be an error in fact, those are mistakes and corrected when we find out about our error.
A column (like Jim’s Jottings or My Way) is one person’s own ideas, articulated in his or her own words. They are not necessarily those of the newspaper.
The newspaper’s opinion, then is called an editorial. We write these occasionally. An editorial can be written by any member of the staff, as long as the ownership authorizes, directs and/or approves of it. Your newspaper has three owners who have lived in the area their entire lives.
Columns and editorials are OUR opinions. So, what about yours? We love them, we want them and we publish them (even if we disagree with them). Your opinions are published in one of two ways: Letters to the Editor, and Guest Columns (essentially, a longer letter to the editor).
Letters to the editor are just that, letters written by the community to the newspaper about what is on the writer’s mind. These letters are the writers? words and ideas (not ours ? yours).
Some letter writers want to voice an opinion that will (in their mind) give them or members of their family problems with a person(s) in positions of power. In certain cases, we do and will continue to withhold names, but we DO know who they are. We DO ask them to use their name, as we feel it lends credibility to their letter/argument. We feel without the name it is too easy to dismiss even valid criticisms. So, to all letter writers we say: Use Your Name!
We are in the process of better labeling opinion pieces in our community newspaper. More on that later.
A note about ownership . . . we sincerely care about our community. We want everybody to succeed and thrive . . . but then again, that’s just another opinion. Which brings me back around to my point: All newspapers, TV stations, radio and internet ‘news? groups have opinions. Some are more informed than others, but we all have them. So do you, and we invite you to share them.