Election season, nestled between mid-winter and the next four years, is underway. From banners to business cards, pamphlets to mailers, and campaign signs planted just beyond the right of way, candidates are building calluses on their door-knocking knuckles trying to persuade voters to cast supporting ballots.
The other hand is often winding up with a handful of mud to sling in the direction of political adversaries. Candidates are not the only ones at whom the cannoneers of dirt clod catapults have their sights trained.
DMC readers who also follow our social media have likely seen that we’re preparing to host a public candidate forum and Q&A later this month. Internally, we’ve been talking through the logistics for a few weeks now.
Last week, social media circles started buzzing about the need for a forum. A couple of contenders and more than a few spectators reached out to ask whether we planned to host something. Since we were already considering it, the public interest made the decision easier.
So we started contacting candidates with invitations and worked to nail down a venue that can accommodate the event. We also notified our audience that we were moving in that direction.
We were immediately met with criticism. Often are we accused of varying degrees of bias, supporting one official over another, being unfairly harsh with some articles, while publishing weak coverage in others. We took similar criticism this time as well, with some commenters suggesting the DMC should be held accountable to the same standard we so often work to hold elected officials accountable.
I found that to be a fascinating turn of events. Not because accountability bothers me. Quite the contrary.
If you think the press doesn’t deserve scrutiny, you’ve misunderstood the job description. We essentially put our finished work product on public display every time we print, post, or broadcast.
That is accountability in its most practical form. You don’t have to file an open records request to see what we wrote. It’s sitting right there.
Criticism is admittedly not the most comfortable pill to swallow, but it is one I ingest whenever the opportunity presents itself, as I always want to become better.
What interested me wasn’t the suggestion of accountability. It was the assumption of some measure of guilt.
One commenter went so far as to imply the Double Mountain Chronicle has “special relationships” with candidates, past and present, as if our newsroom operates like a backroom card game where the dealer is also on the ballot.
So let me answer the question directly. Do we have special relationships with candidates and elected officials?
Yes. … Of course we do. Do you honestly expect a newspaper to cover public officials and public campaigns without ever speaking to the people involved? Do you expect us to avoid learning names, voices, patterns, and personalities?
While often fitting into only a handful of personality arc types, every person is unique in their intricacies, and while sometimes it is challenging to remember, politicians are people too.
A newspaper without relationships is one without sources. And a newspaper without sources is not a watchdog.
It’s a bulletin board… Like social media. Relationships are not the same thing as favoritism.
Sometimes relationships are strong, professional, and productive. Sometimes they’re thoughtful and respectful, built over years of conducting business. Other times, especially when an official earns respect over time, relationships become more personal.
That can make negative coverage harder to write, but it does not make it optional. Journalism is a responsibility.
Conversely, relationships are sometimes tense. Some are strained. And there are those that are akin to colonoscopies: it is completely necessary; you don’t look forward to it; it’s uncomfortable in the same locations.
Given a choice, I would rather have a professional working relationship with the people we cover than a permanent state of hostilities.
Not because I desire to befriend positions of power. Because access matters, answers matter, and you don’t get either by committing arson to every narrow-minded bridge and then acting surprised when you can’t cross the river.
The lives of members of the press and political parties alike are full of fair-weather friends.
Your enemy today can be your ally tomorrow. The person who helped you uncover the answer yesterday can be the one building a stone wall between you and the truth tomorrow.
That isn’t cynicism. That’s just human nature mixed with public life.
If you want to hold this publication accountable for what we publish, I welcome it.
Read closely. Ask questions. Challenge facts. Point out errors when we make them. Push back when you believe we got something wrong.
But expecting to get closer to truth without any relationships is naïve.
We will keep forging relationships that allow us to gather information. We will keep sifting records, attending meetings, conducting interviews, and developing sources. And we will keep protecting the confidentiality of those sources because that protection is ethically necessary.
Along the way, our door, mailbox, cell phones, and opinion pages remain open to you.
Scrutiny is healthy. Applied equally, it improves politicians. It improves the press. It improves the nation. It improves tomorrow.