It must be an election year.
If there's ever a time to question our careers in journalism, campaign season is it.
We're either favoring one party over the other, or we're completely dropping the ball by not photographing a grand political fundraising dinner. We charge too much for advertising, and we're too stingy with our editorial freebies.
It's a time when we hunker down, grit our teeth and hope we live to see another election season.
Much like the Christian creed to "be in the world but not of it," journalists are expected to maintain an unbiased, objective approach to campaign coverage while at the same time taking our well-formed personal opinion into the voting booth.
Daily newspapers, it seems, have it easier. Every day, they have new pages to fill with election news in addition to daily news.
At the Star Herald, as it is at most small weeklies, we have one paper each week, and only 16 to 20 pages to work with. Considering many of those pages are already filled with our usual community news coverage - which believe it or not, does continue despite election season, it leaves a limited news hole to cover political candidates.
So, we in the weekly world, take the approach that we will cover our little corner of the world and we cover it thoroughly.
Readers will find very little information about our candidates for governor, Supreme Court, Secretary of State and other state offices in the Star Herald. It's not that those offices aren't important, but we figure our readers can find information about those candidates in their daily newspapers.
What they will find in the Star Herald, however, is information they can't get anywhere else. Two weeks ago, the Star Herald profiled each of the 25 candidates running for school board in three area districts. Last week, the Star Herald covered responses by candidates for State House of Representatives at the Chamber's Candidate Forum. This week, the Star Herald is publishing in-depth interviews of both the sheriff and mayor races. Bet you wonÕt find that in the Globe or the Argus.
WeÕre the first to admit we fall sadly short in our efforts to adequately inform local readers on their voting choices, but we also arenÕt so short-sighted as to assume we're their only source for election information.
We hope that local readers will use all resources available to them to become educated on their voting choices. To learn about Rock County's candidates, see the Star Herald. To learn about who's representing Rock County in Washington, buy a daily.