Friday, July 31, 2009

Free press and forms of censorship

In a response to a recent post by my editor about censorship in hard economic times, one reader commented that since Idyllwild is "primarily a resort and vacation town" negative headlines, such as the current one about the likely failure of Guaranty Bank do not make a good impression. On whom?

We are a town with an increasing number of full time residents. Our job is to cover and print the news putting the most important stories on our front page. Our job is not to make a "good impression" on tourists and visitors. For that you have a Chamber of Commerce and various local businesses whose job IS to make a good impression on tourists and visitors. We are not a PR organ for Idyllwild tourism. We are a newspaper. The Guaranty Bank story is important to those of us who live here and bank at the branch. It is a story here and in the LA Times, Dallas Herald, CNN, Fortune and many other publications that have written essentially the same story about the imminent failure of a bank. And it's of major concern to that bank's customers.

Last week we featured a story about the local production of "The Wizard of Oz" on the front page - a "feel good story." We do vary our front story page placement. Some readers, including the person who posted the comment on the Wild Idys blog site, continue to insist that we should be printing only "good" news. If negative things did not occur and have importance as news to those of us who live here, we would not have to report them.

As to censorship, the editor was referring to "economic" censorship that comes in the form of withdrawing advertising or subscriptions if we exercise our first amendment rights - printing letters to the editor, cartoons, even ads that some may disagree with. Our job is to be fair in exercising our first amendment rights. As to letters to the editor, we print a broad spectrum, none of which do we as editorial staff necessarily agree with personally.

Without a strong and vibrant print press, what liberties we continue to have as a free people will atrophy and wither.

Read. Champion a free press. And please try to understand the difference between a newspaper and public relations agency. Public relations agencies make a lot more money.

1 comment:

  1. Yes! Idyllwild is an island in many ways. Too many folk forget that people live & work here & we need to watch out for each other. It often resembles 'Survivor' with our weird 'alliances', and it often resembles certain Orange Co. related amusement resorts with folk strolling across the streets @ odd places. For the 'island people' this IS reality & not just vacationland.

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