Editorial: ‘…Declare if you are patriots…and what you believe in….’

  • The Mountain Enterprise editor, Patric Hedlund, covering a Mountain Communities event. [Gary Meyer photo]

    The Mountain Enterprise editor, Patric Hedlund, covering a Mountain Communities event. [Gary Meyer photo]

By Patric Hedlund, Editor

We received an angry letter recently from a local citizen who has earned a reputation (and a felony conviction record) for rageaholic outbursts, both private and public. That condition recurred recently after a time of remission. We leave it to him to decide if he wishes to identify himself to you. He will remain nameless here. But I’d like to share a comment from his tirade.

After bluster about his expertise as a judge of journalism (because he once took an introduction to journalism course), he expressed frustration that he is unable to pigeonhole the editor and publisher of this newspaper with a political label:

“I would prefer that [you] got off the fence and declared if you are patriots, republicans, democrats, moderates, feminist, communist or whatever it is that you believe in…,” he spluttered.

Our grumpy letter-writer did not intend to pass out compliments. He wanted to be insulting. But to the eye of an editor who has served the Mountain Communities for eight years, learning that our self-appointed critic had been unable to label us was the highest possible praise.

It confirmed that our efforts to root our reporting in our local community’s needs and issues are on target. We have no interest in trying to sell our readers on any particular “belief.” But we have no doubt about what we believe in. We believe in you. And we believe in your ability to use meaningful information well.

  1. We believe our mission is to serve our readers with information they need to make good decisions in their personal and community lives.
  2. We believe the first amendment to the United States Constitution and the state laws that safeguard openness and transparency in government are vital to a healthy democracy. These rights need to be respected by those we elect and by those whom we employ to serve the public.
  3. We believe a free press is essential to the goals of our constitutional democracy. We believe vigorous local reporting supports democracy at the grassroots level. That is the mission of community newspapers across this country.

This is part of the July 06, 2012 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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