June 21, 1998
One of the really neat things about this job I have is the fact
that I pretty much get to stick my nose in everybody else's business
especially those people who go trucking around with your tax dollars. It's
one I take seriously.
The press's role of being the watchdog of government is one which
often puts us at odds with elected officials and bureaucrats at all levels
of government. This is especially the case at the local level, where most
of the time you wind up being neighbors to those you're reporting about.
The hardest part of reporting local news lies in communicating
the message to those you cover that critical reporting isn't anything personal.
I don't hold grudges.
In the three-plus years I've been here now, some of my reporting
has certainly stepped on some toes. I've ticked off Commissioners Courts
in two counties, the school district, City Council, the Governor and probably
countless other folks.
At the moment, for example, I would describe the paper's relationship
with the school district as "somewhat strained." Some of the stories which
have cropped up over the past three years, frankly, have shed a less-than-positive
light on the Katy Independent School District.
I've been dressed down at Board meetings, snarled at by anonymous
phone callers or letter-writers and yes, we've lost a few subscribers
over that coverage. By the same token, we've gained a few subscribers specifically
because of that critical coverage. And we've got a slew of awards hanging
on our walls because of that coverage.
It's nothing personal. It's my job to question, openly, the decisions,
actions and events which most impact my paper's readers. The press's role
is to point out problems to the reading public. Were we simply finding
problems and pointing them out privately, we'd be adjunct bureaucrats.
It's my job to give the side of the story officialdom doesn't
or won't give you. If they say it's red, I will at least listen to someone
who might have the opinion that it's blue or green; if what they have to
say has some credibility, I will pass that information along to my readers.
If KISD, City Council, the county or anyone else says they're
doing "this" when they're actually doing "that," it's my job to challenge
that in print when I have something to back it up. You should see some
of the stuff I've got that we couldn't run, primarily for lack of something
solid in the way of evidence.
At the same time, it's also my job to point out when things are
"right." I would challenge those who question our "negative" bias to stop
by our office sometime, take a pica pole and run through three years' worth
of back issues to measure the column inches devoted to "positive" and "negative"
stories.
There are a lot of "positive" stories in our paper in fact,
sometimes there are so many of them, they become easy to overlook. By the
same token, there are a lot of good stories out there we never hear about,
and still others where we simply don't have enough warm bodies to cover
everything we'd like to cover. We rely on our reading public and the
school district, city, county and other organizations to feed us information
and photos. We love 'em.
The bread-and-butter of any community newspaper is "refrigerator
journalism" getting Johnny and Susie's name in the paper for Mom and
Dad to clip out and tack up on the refrigerator. We'd be fools to ignore
those stories.
Many small newspapers, however, take the view that only the "good"
news is worthwhile, to avoid giving offense to anyone (especially advertisers).
They rely exclusively on what's fed to them.
That's unethical and cowardly avoiding the responsibility of
a free press and I consider this community fortunate that our publisher
and parent company take that responsibility seriously.
Feel free to disagree. It's nothing personal.