Everybody likes to yell at their TVs when the news comes on in the evening, and people can’t help bashing the news sources they disagree with the most. Either you like CNN and The New York Times or you are a FOX follower and are convinced The Washington Post is full of “fake news.”
Well, at least most people are paying attention to something, instead of being totally out of the loop. We only wish there was less yelling and more conversation, but that is wishing for a lot.
Here at this newspaper, we get yelled at, too. Sometimes the comments and complaints are put in writing or told to us in person. When we hear second- or third-hand about comments made behind our back, we cringe. That’s because we want all the feedback and critiques we can get, but they need to be handled face-to-face style, not pusillanimously. (Look it up.)
We believe this newspaper gets better when more people are not only reading it, but also talking to it. We don’t own the news, our readers do.
We get lots of mail in many forms, and we also get loads of Facebook posts and other forms of feedback. We try to print every local letter to the editor we receive. All we ask is that the writer put his or her name on it.
We get all kinds of letters. Most of them aren’t really letters anymore, they are emails or online posts on our website. A few of the responses we receive thank us for our coverage of a particular event or local fundraiser. Most of the submitted comments are critical of something we did or did not report.
Recently, we’ve been blamed for encouraging the eating of pets (rabbits), making the homelessness problem worse, unduly alarming some neighborhoods about the wildfires and being too negative about the west county’s hospital finances.
Some readers say we cover too much sports, others say not enough. We got complaints for not covering a big story about garbage rates, Healdsburg’s roundabout construction and the upcoming sheriff’s election. We actually did cover these stories, but not everybody read them. (They are archived on our website.)
Everybody’s opinion has value to us, so long as you sign your name and do your best to stick to the facts. We are humbly aware that this newspaper has the final word on the news and community issues it covers. We measure our newsprint by the ton, and we use ink by the barrel. We do not take this responsibility lightly, and we never rebuke or seek to upstage other voices. We don’t yell with our printed words even when our editorials sound disgusted with our current president or the latest tax increase.
Newspapers were the first form of social media, centuries before computers, the internet and Facebook. Newspapers don’t use robots or algorithms to invade someone’s privacy or reading habits. We don’t spread spam, clickbait or fake news. The more readers (and letter writers) a newspaper has, the more news there is to share.
Keep the letters coming. Join our Facebook pages and be part of the weekly local news conversation. Tell us what’s on your mind and ask questions. What news stories would you like us to cover? We can’t cover everything, so we need our readers to tell us what’s most important or interesting.
This newspaper’s capacity to collect, write and deliver the local news is limited by the amount of advertisements and subscriptions we sell and how many resources that supports. But our capacity to listen and read your letters is limitless.
We are often told that the letters to the editor section is most readers’ favorite item. We agree.
