As every reader should know, 2022 was an election year in Brunswick County and across America. With that came our election coverage, largely in the form of candidate questionnaires and reporting of the results. There also came a weekly barrage of letters to the editor endorsing one political candidate, party or position or the other for months leading up to the November election.
With that election in our rear view mirror, the influx of — very political — letters to the editor has subsided. What has remained, it seems, is a misunderstanding among some readers of what letters to the editor are and what they are not.
Most importantly, letters to the editor found in the Brunswick Beacon are not an endorsement of the opinion being expressed in those letters, not at all.
Our letters to the editor section is a place where readers can express their opinions on a wide array of subjects but, most typically, that subject is politics — local, state and federal.
As our policy states, we do not reject letters unless they are deemed potentially libelous. And rarely is that the case, as the letters almost always deal with policy issues or with individuals, such as politicians at all levels, who have made themselves public figures, which opens them up to criticism.
But the semantics of media law is not important to the reader, all that was simply to say that it is on only extremely rare occasions we don’t run a letter to the editor, and that’s because, legally, it could land us in hot water.
However, because of the prominence of letters in the section endorsing the Democratic Party’s candidates and positions, there is an idea floating around that the Brunswick Beacon, again because of the letters over which we do not control the content, is a “liberal” newspaper that is deliberately leaving out conservative’s letters while propping up the other side.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Newspapers shouldn’t be “conservative” or “liberal.” That is not the Brunswick Beacon’s place and if you are seeking a news source that spins its coverage to the left or to the right, then you’re reading the wrong newspaper.
Our job is to keep the citizens of Brunswick County informed on the issues that affect them, to hold our governments accountable, to be a voice for the voiceless, to report the facts and the context so the reader can reach their own conclusions.
Nowhere on our list of objectives is there a goal to sway public opinion on partisan political issues, many of which are not directly related to, nor affect, Brunswick County. The Brunswick Beacon should not, and does not, take sides. News media, in all formats, should not take sides and if news media, in any format, does take sides, then it is not news.
In hopes to clear the air of any misunderstandings, allow us to explain the difference in the types of content found in the Beacon. Those types are news coverage, columns, editorials and letters to the editor.
News coverage involves the gathering of information, through a variety of means and sources, on events and issues affecting Brunswick County and its residents and presenting that information and context. Our news coverage includes, but is not limited to, local governments, schools, sports, business, events, the environment, crime and public safety. Our news coverage strives to be accurate, balanced, contextual, fair, unbiased and informative.
Columns are opinion pieces that discuss a wide array of topics and do not represent the opinion of the newspaper. Typically, the Brunswick Beacon runs John Hood and D.G. Martin, two syndicated North Carolina columnists; Fran Salone-Pelletier, who writes a Christianity column; Linda Arnold, who writes an advice and life column; and Cheryl Syracuse, who writes a column for the local North Carolina Cooperative Extension office. Columns can be and are written by the paper’s editorial employees, but those columns, again, express the opinion of the writer and not the paper itself.
Editorials are pieces expressing the newspaper’s opinion or stance on a particular topic, usually one that has local relevance. What you are reading now is an editorial.
Letters to the editor are 300-word pieces submitted by readers and can cover essentially any topic as long as they are not libelous against any one person, public or private, or organization. We run the overwhelming majority of letters we receive. The political stances of letters are not at all taken into account when determining if a letter will run in our paper, and doing so would be antithetical to our mission. We encourage, in fact we implore, readers of all viewpoints to submit letters.
It is true that, especially during election season, most of the letters to the editor in the Brunswick Beacon were written by Democrats in the county. The lone reason for that is because that’s who we received the most letters from.
Letters written by Republicans are not, and never have been, thrown out. The simple fact is Republicans don’t submit as many letters to us. We wish this were different, as exhibiting a diverse set of opinions on a diverse set of topics is our goal.
But, readers, please understand, the Brunswick Beacon is not withholding, has not withheld and will not in the future withhold letters because of the political message and ideology of the writer or the political opinion expressed in the letter.
Our letters to the editor section is intended to be a marketplace of ideas, but it can only reach that potential if there is an equal exchange of ideas from various viewpoints, and the onus for that is on the reader.
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