A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
There are only two teams in the championship game, and people root for one team or the other, but rarely both.
It’s that way in politics, too. And, just like sports, the game just isn’t as interesting when there’s just one team.
So, we’ve divided ourselves into conservatives and liberals, neither one better than the other and both working toward the same goals … just from a different perspective.
News, though, should not be divided. The Pine Knot News prides itself on covering local news with just one agenda: reporting the facts. There’s no bias in our news reporting.
The opinion page, however, is not news. It’s opinion, and it’s allowed to have different perspectives, and yes, different political agendas.
That’s why you see editorials advocating a certain viewpoint, and why the columnists are allowed to bend their viewpoints to the left or the right. It wouldn’t be tolerated in a news story. But it’s encouraged in opinion pieces.
Our reporters don’t write opinion columns. I bet you can’t tell me how editor Jana Peterson leans. Nor can you tell me if reporter Mike Creger is Democrat or Republican. That’s the way it should be. Sometimes, one of our columnists is asked to pinch hit in covering a public meeting. But even in those cases, political opinions don’t creep in.
Lately, the Pine Knot News has lost some of its regular conservative columnists. Uriah Wilkinson is running for office and Justin Krych and other contributors have just been too busy to write regularly. So the only regular opinion columns on the editorial pages you see are “Harry’s Gang” from publisher Pete Radosevich and newspaper board member Ann Markusen. Both, admittedly, skew left. Nothing wrong with that.
We’d love to balance the editorial page. If you would like to contribute your views to the Pine Knot News, or if you know someone who would be good at it, give us a call or send us an email. You may even land a spot on the “Harry’s Gang” TV show. After all, the local political scene is much more enjoyable when we hear from all along the political spectrum.
