The City of Whitesboro, and its citizens, are divided these days.
It’s a division that mirrors our national politics. It is not helpful and it has been nasty at times.
And the News-Record has been tasked with reporting it all.
Along the way, we’ve drawn criticism for our handling of the news.
That’s okay. It comes with the territory.
I learned a long time ago that we can’t please all folks all the time.
But the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics tells us to explain our journalistic decisions when asked.
I am so inclined here.
Back on Sept. 14, I received a personal message from an old friend and reader.
They took exception with a story we’d printed that week retelling how former Whitesboro aldermen Ben Edwards criticized the current city council in a public session.
My friend wrote:
“We have known each other a long time. I have never found it necessary to criticize. The article that was used allowing a former councilman to voice his opinion on the current council seems very biased and politically motivated. You just ran an article calling out divisiveness and then run this… Mr. Edwards has no place publicly calling anyone out. If his opinion was that of the community, he wouldn’t be a former councilman.”
The elephant in the room is that Ben Edwards is married to our editor Jessica Edwards. Our reader, understandably, felt like Ben was getting favored treatment in the press because we wrote about the episode.
This is a common concern I’ve heard a lot lately and one I’ll address a bit later in this column.
I appreciated my friend’s feedback and replied with the following:
“The man stood up in a public meeting and aired a grievance. He opened his mouth and words came out. We reported on it.
We would have written the article no matter who said it. The fact that he is a former councilman adds a degree of prominence— which adds to newsworthiness.
We just report what is said and what happens. I feel like we’ve done a good job of that, and I stand beside the way it has been reported.
But I appreciate your concerns and would love to run them as a letter to the editor— if you’d like.
I’d also love for folks to stand up in open session and praise positivity. We’d write about that too.”
He replied and thanked me for the explanation and admitted he was unable to be completely unbiased on the issue.
He and I are due to have lunch together sometime soon.
The controversies have not subsided since then.
A candidate for state office came to City Hall and led a chorus of citizens insisting no new property taxes be incurred.
Four of five aldermen were present, and they sided with the crowd.
Much of the crowd size can be attributed to a public awareness initiative on social media by another former alderman, Colby Meals.
Again, the News-Record reported on the meeting.
I received more feedback Sunday evening.
This time, from another longtime friend via another personal message.
They wrote:
“I thought long and hard and decided to raise a question. Is there a fair balance of news in our paper? Or are we leaning toward the Edwards/Meals team?”
Again, a valid question and one I answered as follows:
“I feel like we have retold the meetings as they have occurred. Granted, I haven’t been to every meeting, but I’ve listened to the recordings and I don’t think we have strayed too far from how they have occurred.
It hasn’t been fun— that’s for sure. And I don’t relish any of it… In the end, it’s all really delicate and (for that matter) exhausting. I always appreciate the feedback.
We are not perfect. The newspaper is a collection of humans making hard decisions.
So, all feedback is welcome— and heard.
Please feel free to write a letter to the editor and I’d love to talk about it all more over a cup of coffee sometime soon.”
They thanked me for my response and added more insight:
“I know you know best about how all this works. I’ve just been listening, and hearing some folks talk about Ben getting lots of ‘play time’ since his wife is editor.
It gives the appearance of special treatment. I absolutely love our newspaper and have never heard complaints since she took over. She’s great!
Anyway, thanks for giving me a safe space to ‘talk.’
Love you, your family and our newspaper.”
So, the “Edwards elephant in the room” was the motivation for their inquiry. Again, understandably.
So I felt behooved to follow up a bit more.
I replied:
“It’s a tough deal with Jessica working here. Don’t get me wrong— I wouldn’t trade her for anyone… she does a wonderful job, but please let folks know that I’ve been intentional about how we cover the city and how we use Jessica to do it.”
When Jennifer and I bought the place, we took Jessica off city council coverage immediately.
Our code of ethics tells us to ‘avoid conflicts of interest- either real or perceived.’
I don’t think she was doing a bad job, but I didn’t want the perception of inside baseball.
Now— that’s hard to do in a small town. But we try.
So, I jumped in and covered those meetings until we found Belmary Muniz.
And she has covered Whitesboro City Hall ever since.
We took Jessica out of the editing process in those stories too.
We’ve been able to maintain this up until last week.
It was a special, Friday night meeting. Belmary was unavilable and I was out of town.
We needed someone to cover the meeting and Jessica was our only local option.
She went for the first part of the meeting and left early— because Friday was bad for her, too.
She left the tape recorder going and wrote the story based on the recording.
I decided to put her name on the byline of the story as opposed to the generic “staff report” byline that other publishers would. The “staff report” can often be used to hide who actually wrote it. (‘Staff reports’ are also used when the story was submitted and, therefore, not enough of the work was done by a single newspaper employer to warrant ownership in a byline.)
I wanted to fully disclose who wrote it.
I knew it would open us up for criticism, but we are open for criticism either way.
At least this way, we are being completely honest about our authorship.
Jessica covering the Friday meeting was a last resort, and I hope it doesn’t happen again (but it might).
All this to say, there are no perfect answers. It’s an ongoing series of judgment calls.
Just know— and let folks know— that it is a conversation we have constantly.
We don’t always get it right. But we try.
A mutual friend once told me, “In a small town, if everyone only ever does one thing— nothing would ever get done.”
He is so right. You can’t avoid conflicts of interest all the time, but we try. And we own it when we can’t.
All this to say, I stand by our newsroom policies and procedures.
I’ve been accused recently of only being interested in selling newspapers.
To which I say, “If the truth sells, so be it.”
I also stand by our people. This community is blessed to have Jessica Edwards as its newspaper’s editor.
We are also blessed to have a trained reporter like Belmary Muniz on the beat.
We have policies in place to avoid conflicts and we call them out when we can’t.
That’s the best we can do and I feel like we’ve done just that.
All this is offered in the spirit of complete transparency. Because that’s what you deserve.
As always, I appreciate your feedback. So keep it coming.
My favorite thing to print is a letter to the editor. I appreciate the conversation.
Letters may be submitted to [email protected].
Or just stop by the office for a cup of coffee.