How we choose what to include

Readers and longtime subscribers have been critical of a few of our recent editorial decisions at the papers I edit and related social media posts have generated heated discussion. So, I thought it would be a good time to give everyone a look under the hood and describe how we decide what to put in the newspaper.

Our first priority is to report as much as we can by traveling around the area, taking photographs and talking with people. We are primarily a team of two persons in this regard, covering three rural northeast lower Michigan counties, with a couple of regular, freelance contributors assisting. We rely on invitations, community buzz and personal interest in deciding what to attend.

Our next priority is to solicit and curate community contributions and press releases. When coaches and parents of student athletes send us photographs and gameplay details, we take pains to include them. We also work in collaboration with coaches and parents to develop stories from a combination of photographs, statistics and comments.

We publish virtually every letter submitted to us in accordance with the letters policy. When residents hold community events, including parades, concerts and rallies, and send photographs, we consider that community news.

Partisan groups, activists and representatives of for-profit, private interests are free to buy advertising — that’s not our department. We tend not to promote many causes or agendas. However, if a large crowd assembles for any reason and then community residents send us photos and reports, we are likely to include an article about the event in our publications after the fact. 

In the case of the local ‘No Kings’ rally Oct. 18, one of our editors stopped briefly to survey the scene en route to a community event in A------, followed by another community event in downtown W------ that evening.

At the rally, we spoke with several people, including local residents and others who had traveled to the event from surrounding communities to the south and north. Later, multiple event attendees submitted photographs from the rally. We also reported on the presence of a counter-demonstrator and quoted him directly.

Our brief article about the event expressed neither approval nor condemnation, and we included photographs that were submitted to us as space allowed.

In our view this is appropriate journalistic coverage of events and happenings in our area.

We welcome your contributions in the form of letters to the editors, photographs, and reports on community events, as well as in phone calls providing us feedback and constructive criticism. We will continue striving to provide you with local, community news as free as possible from bias.