Tough questions generate dialogue

Thank you for your feedback, Ms. Engstrom. (Please see her letter to the editor below). We do indeed try to get all the information before writing a story. Please understand that letters to the editor are one person's opinion, and are often based on information that was not formally presented in court, in a city council meeting, etc. — information we can't necessarily use. When I get a comment from someone outside of a public meeting or court appearance, for example, I will denote that quote by writing "so-and-so said after the meeting" so people understand that it was not spoken publicly.

Ms. Lovell's letter from last week and another one this week, recounts conversations that she said happened between Rick Jore's and Jeanne Windham's (or Anita Big Spring's) attorneys before the Dec. 17 hearing. I wasn't at that meeting (and I assume Ms. Lovell wasn't either) so I can't say exactly what happened. Ms. Lovell is reporting something secondhand, which is not an option I have. I often hear or am told information secondhand and cannot report it in a story until I get confirmation from the people involved. This is a constant dilemma for any reporter.

I did in fact contact all of the attorneys involved, including Ms. Windham's attorney, Mike Meloy (I left a total of three messages), when we first covered the issue last month and none of them returned phone calls seeking comment — a not-unheard-of situation, given the circumstances. The fact that they did not return phone calls was noted in my article, which you must have overlooked. We contacted the attorneys and went with the most reliable information we had at the time. Fortunately or unfortunately, we can't report secondhand information as "news," so I stand behind the accuracy of my story.

Letters to the editor, whether they are based on religious views or political opinions, have a lower standard of proof than news articles simply because they are presented as one person's opinion. Those opinions can be interesting and informative, like Ms. Lovell's, or they can be extremely biased and unreliable, as you noticed. Editors are loath to censor letters just because they disagree with someone's point of view because many people feel newspapers are the last protection of freedom of speech.

Ms. Engstrom's letter questioning at what point do we not print letters is a very interesting one. We have indeed printed letters from people with very biased (and to me, unreasonable) viewpoints, both political and religious.

I often get complaints from people who ask me why we feel the need to print those. Typically, the four ultra-liberals living in the county want to know why I let the four ultra-conservatives spout off in my paper, and the conservatives assume I have a liberal bias against them because I'm a member of the ("liberal elite") media. The reality is I'm stuck somewhere in the middle, both in terms of my job and my own viewpoints.

Letters with an extremely biased view of the world annoy me 10 times more than they do most of our readers. After all, I have to take responsibility for letting them be printed.

Sometimes I step back and ask myself why I'm letting someone use our paper as a vehicle to further such a narrow view of the world, but my feeling is that you have to take the bad with the good. Besides, my definition of "bad" isn't the same as yours. When I start censoring letters because I don't agree with an opinion, then I feel I'm abusing my authority. As in most cases, the letter speaks for itself.

I've often contemplated interviewing and doing a story on the certain people who regularly submit more extreme viewpoints to show a face behind the name, but I worry that that would just encourage the more extreme people in our community to inundate me with their viewpoints in an effort to reach a larger audience.

It's worth noting that I don't automatically run every letter we receive. One of the biggest headaches I face on a weekly basis is dealing with those in this county who enjoy using our Opinion page as their own personal column space (I know, my opinion doesn't mean any more than the next person's). They will submit letters on a variety of topics, none of which have appeared in our paper or are about local issues. Some of these are quite interesting, and we will run them as "Another View," for example, but the problem I run into is that I'll print one and sure enough, the same person submits another one a week later ("He liked my first one so much, Doris, that he's bound to love my second one!").

Preference is definitely given to letters that refer to current events or items that have appeared in our paper, which is why I like letters such as Ms. Lovell's or Ms. Engstrom's. Anything that gets the dialogue going and shows folks are really reading the paper is a good sign, and we welcome letters with tough questions such as Ms. Engstrom's.

Along those lines, in an effort to provide as full a picture as possible, we've included Rick Jore's letter to Anita Big Spring and Jeanne Windham's response in this week's edition regarding this situation. You can choose which point-of-view you want to believe more.

For the record, Ms. Engstrom, I'm enjoying living in Lake County and don't view my position here as "just passing through." The only bigger and better journalism positions available to me are at daily newspapers, and working at a weekly is stressful enough as it is. Thanks for your feedback.

I welcome feedback at editor@leaderadvertiser.com.