I’ll start off this week’s venture with a thanks to Jerry Purvis, a friend and colleague from a Nebraska newspaper who wrote about some of our exchanges in one of his latest columns.He’s been a distant fan of the Rock County Star Herald ever since he stumbled upon our Web site while looking for another Star Herald — which, eerily enough, has a Roger Tollefson on staff.Jerry covers city and county government, as I do, so we run into the same issues on the job. He just happened to have put it into better words than I can today.He said, "In metropolitan areas, public officials are often faceless. But in small towns, journalists come in contact with them on a daily basis. It might be in the supermarket, downtown, or at church. But it happens. And the journalist who writes about these people needs to be able to face them with a clear conscience."That makes sense to me. But I wonder if neophyte journalists, in order to avoid community rancor, will overlook legitimate concerns just to maintain smiley face coverage."After all, the journalist who criticizes a community leader’s boorish behavior might have that leader screaming into the phone at him or her. Or said leader might gripe to newspaper headquarters, demanding the insolent jerk’s immediate execution."Jerry says it can sometimes force us to consider a less stressful line of work, "Like bomb disposal."It’s funny that while I was enjoying Jerry’s comments, I was also enjoying an earful from a good number of city of Luverne staff based on our editorial in last week’s paper. The editorial suggested slowing spending on new projects. A letter to the editor this week points out that the City Council had justification for spending that money, but the Star Herald said it should have held off.The letter implies that we didn’t talk to sources or adequately cover the development issue, but anyone who read the news article last week could see quotes from elected people and city and county staff involved in the decision. Those weren’t made up. Facts and truth have sold issues of this paper since 1873. In all those years, now, and beyond 2005, we will fairly cover news and offer opinionated takes on that news within the appropriately designated "opinion" page. That’s the way it works. To say we don’t report positively on city happenings isn’t true: just two issues ago we had a column, pictures and a story on the wastewater treatment facility.I guess my Nebraskan friend, Jerry, says it wisely: "Taking a stand is hard to do in small towns. In one way or another, everyone deals with everyone else."Jerry and I also agree on this: we will continue our obligation to smiley face coverage … along with the harder stuff, too, that is.
