The burden of bearing bad news

No one said this job was going to be easy.

Just about everything you do, every decision you make, is scrutinized by thousands of people. You lay yourself on the line every week, opening yourself to the criticism that comes along with that kind of scrutiny. And you do it in the context of a small-town community, a place where everybody knows everyone else.

And every mistake you make is made on the public stage.

All of that comes with the territory.

Assessing my perceived thick skin, a coworker recently remarked, "You don't care if people don't like you." That's not exactly true. I'm no different from everyone else; I want to be liked. But I understand that the job I have to do often requires me to make decisions that get people mad at me, even make them dislike me (or worse).

So, you steel yourself for it. Buck up and take it. You do it because you believe in your work, believe in the inherent value of what you do, you believe in the importance of good community journalism. You do your best to do the right thing, present the facts, tell the truth -- because that's what you're supposed to do.

At no time is this job tougher than when it requires you to make a decision like the one I had to make last week, when a local woman, a woman employed in the classroom in our local public school system, was arrested and charged with statutory rape as a result of an alleged sexual relationship with a 15-year-old boy.

All sorts of things go through your head when you hear something like that.

As the mother of a 15-year-old myself, I admit to having a visceral protective reaction. Child sexual abuse angers me.

As the editor and co-publisher of the local newspaper, I have to deal with it on an entirely different level. It is our job to report the news -- fairly, truthfully, accurately. And this is the kind of news that is especially difficult and tricky to report. Because what is alleged to have happened is a tragedy for all involved -- for the child, the abuser, their families, the school district, the community. It's difficult and tricky because we are a small, close-knit community and this news (like almost all the news we report) affects our neighbors, colleagues, friends and the people we work for -- you, our readers. It's even more difficult and tricky for us, as your local newspaper, when the story, like the one in question, is one that's picked up by the wire services and published by print and broadcast media across the country. And then there's the Internet, of course, where it's been a topic of much discussion on message boards far and wide. And all of that dissemination happens in between the weekly newspaper's regular publication days.

There are those who argue that The Suffolk Times should not have printed the story. We've got some letters on these pages today criticizing us for doing so. We've also got a few we can't print here, because the people who wrote them lacked the courage to sign their names to them.

Some people believe the local newspaper should react to horrors like the Commins rape charge as a family member might react. You circle the wagons, close ranks, protect your own. You don't wash your dirty laundry in public. But if we did that in circumstances like these, we wouldn't be a newspaper -- we'd be a community cheerleader. The Suffolk Times would quickly become irrelevant in this age of immediate, free-flowing news and information. If our newspaper last week did not include a story that had been plastered all over newspapers, TV and radio for nearly an entire week before, wouldn't you, as a reader, forever wonder what else wasn't being printed in The Suffolk Times?

That's the heart of it. Our readers need to know that they can count on The Suffolk Times to report the unvarnished truth fairly, accurately and completely. That's not to say we will never make a mistake. Journalists are, in fact, human. But The Suffolk Times will never sugarcoat the news or spike a news story in order to be polite or loyal to family, friends, advertisers or the community at large. Some days, that's a really hard mission to fulfill. But no one ever said this job was going to be easy.

Send me an e-mail: denise@timesreview.com.

They put the silly in the season

It’s time for that biennial migraine suffered by editors of local newspapers everywhere. The home stretch of the local election campaign, every couple of years, brings with it a barrage of political ads making dubious claims and scurrilous attacks. Editors suffer the unhappy consequence of the silly season at its silliest peak: vetting the ads and dealing with politicians and their operatives who fight tooth and nail every attempt to, er, keep ’em honest. Things reach fever pitch right about now, two weeks out.
And it’s been brutal this year. For reasons I can’t quite fathom, this has been a particularly rough year for dealing with political ads in The Suffolk Times newsroom. Each “side” came into the campaign convinced that this newspaper was solidly in the other camp. When the Democrats think you favor the Republicans and the Republicans think you’re carrying water for the Democrats, you must be doing something right, I figure. We’ve been screamed at, threatened with a lawsuit and accused of taking sides — both sides — and that was just in the past week. The person on our staff whose job includes booking political ads is totally stressed out. One horrible encounter with a campaign representative had our managing editor questioning the sanity of anyone involved in politics. And I found myself exchanging harsh words with candidates on the sidewalk outside Poquatuck Hall in Orient Saturday afternoon.
We can’t wait for this to end.
The weird thing is, this is the unlikeliest group of men to be involved in such a down-and-dirty slugfest, if you ask me. Intelligent, well-spoken, and well-bred country gentlemen battling over who’s “most rural,” they’ve proved they can sling mud with the best of city street-fighters. To be fair, not every candidate went down this path. Some stayed above the fray. But the undercurrent has been nasty this campaign.
Much of this has gone down behind the scenes. But the mostly genteel exterior of this year’s campaign was going to be cracked wide open this week, though, with a couple of nasty ads submitted for publication that, in the end, won’t see the light of day — at least not in the pages of The Suffolk Times. We have the League of Women Voters to thank for that, at least indirectly. Here’s why:
A representative of the League is moderating the candidates debate we’re sponsoring tonight at Peconic Landing. (It’s free, open to the public and runs from 7:30 to 9 p.m., so come on down.) She suggested we ask the candidates to sign the League’s “fair campaign pledge.” It’s a straightforward statement by the candidate promising that he’ll conduct his campaign honestly and fairly; that he’ll discuss the issues and not engage in or condone defamatory attacks upon his opponent’s character; that he won’t misrepresent or distort facts about his opponent; and that he’ll publicly repudiate support from any person or group whose activities violate the pledge. When the candidates came to our office on Oct. 12 for endorsement interviews — we get the candidates for each post in the room together to answer questions and discuss the issues — we asked them to review and sign the pledge. They all complied — eventually. Some took a while — like a week or more. I guess it was a lot to mull over, all this honesty and fairness stuff. The ink was barely dry on the signature line when one candidate immediately submitted an ad that, without question, violated his pledge. If he hadn’t finally agreed to pull it in favor of an ad that wasn’t in violation, I’d be outing him right here and now. But he agreed to keep his word, albeit somewhat reluctantly.
The icing on the cake this week was one candidate who submitted an ad asking us to run it only if his opponent ran a negative ad. Whoa. We don’t go there, mister. You decide which ad you want to run, and we don’t ever — and I mean ever — let on about the contents of the adversary’s ad. That situation was worked out after much fussing and lots of e-mails and phone calls. You’d think we were brokering a cease-fire in the Middle East.
So much of this is so petty, so juvenile, so… Well, suffice it to say it’s what puts the “silly” in the season.