The Meal Is Right There

I am once again amazed at the volume of text that flows through online social media sites about issues in the Cove, yet so little of it ends up in the pages of the Herald. With a community so interested in writing and expressing opinions, you’d think there would be more submitted to the local newspaper. After all, part of the local paper’s job is to present the opinions of its readers.

The Herald does so. And any accusations that we will reject submissions we disagree with or edit them into meaninglessness is just not true.

Also not true is the myth that the Herald will not publish criticism of itself. Community newspapers – and good newspapers in general – have a long history of publishing opinions which contain criticism of the newspaper itself. The Herald proudly carries on that tradition.

One indication of a good news source, by the way, is that it will admit its mistakes in print and then correct them. The Herald does so. In fact, our policy is that if we make a mistake, we will place the correction on the same page where the error was made, even if it is the front page. We don’t try to bury our mistakes. We own them and try to learn from them.

If you don’t believe me, about any of this, I challenge you. I dare you. Try us. Send us a letter to the editor. We will print it. If you don’t want us to edit it at all, we won’t. We will be happy to print your letter exactly as you send it to us.

We will not offer a rebuttal unless you state something that is not true and possibly harmful or if you criticize the Herald. We reserve the right to explain our actions.

Need a recent example? In the Nov. 24 edition, the Herald published a letter to the editor regarding the Plum Creek Mountain issue. Local issue. Letter written. Letter published. That’s what your local newspaper does.

We’re right here and have been since 1885. It seems odd to me that there are so many people in the Cove with strong opinions yet they don’t send them to the Herald for publication, preferring to hide them away online. To me, this makes no sense. It’s like yelling at the waiter, “I want my food!” as he’s placing a full plate in front of you.

Another myth busted

This brings me to another persistent myth. The Herald did not cancel its conservative columnists. Both our conservative and our liberal columnists decided to stop writing their columns when the Herald instituted a new policy about opinions. Since we’re on the topic, please allow me to restate that policy because it is the subject of a lot of misinterpretation. Some of the misinterpretation, I suspect, is intentional.

The Herald’s policy is this: We will not publish opinions which are ONLY focused on national politics, when those national politics do not have a direct effect here in the Cove.

Let me be very clear: If you have an opinion about state or national politics and the topic affects the Cove, then we will publish your opinion. And, as I said earlier, we will do so without a single edit, if you so choose.

Let me provide some examples to be clear.

• Issue: Congress wants to make changes in federal agricultural policy regarding corn growers and dairy farms. Decision: We will publish this. There’s a clear and direct effect on the Cove.

• Issue: The Pennsylvania legislature wants to change the state’s personal income tax rate. Decision: We will publish your opinion. There will be a definite effect on residents of the Cove.

• Issue: You want to comment about something that Nancy Pelosi or Mitch McConnell said about politics. Decision: This is national politics with no clear effect on the Cove. We would not publish this.

We made a suggestion

So, given what I’ve said above, I was somewhat surprised that no one submitted an opinion to the Herald regarding the recent concern over something said by the person appointed to fill a vacant seat on the Spring Cove School Board.

I’m surprised because 1) There was a lot of posting on social media about the quote and 2) the matter clearly meets the Herald’s policy for publication of opinion. You can’t get much more local than one of the Cove’s four school boards.

We did get a comment or two about the article we published in the Dec. 9 edition about the seating of Kelly Marks on the school board, but none of the comments were submitted for publication in the Herald. We would have done so. All the writer had to do was ask.

The quote

Which brings me to the quote that caused a bit of a stir last week. A quote from Spring Cove School Board appointee Kelly Marks had caused some concern. The Herald was kindly directed to a video and audio recording of the school board meeting posted to YouTube. We wanted to make sure that a transcription of the quote as posted online was accurate. It would be easy to misquote Kelly Marks and then criticize her.

So I took a careful listen to the recording of the school board meeting and compared Marks’s remarks to what was posted online. My verdict? The online quote was accurate.

The question asked of Marks by the board president was, “What are the biggest challenges facing public education today?”

This is what was posted online as Marks’ response:

I believe that it is hard to please a community if they don’t understand that it is a public school. Public school means it is for everyone. If you don’t think it’s worth it, then that’s when you go to a private school. But it’s understanding that there might not be books you agree with but it’s a public education and there are children that are exposed to all of these things at different times in their lives so it’s pleasing to the community to an extent for them to understand that this is a public education and it is open to all not just a certain few.

In the interests of fairness and completeness, I do have to make a few comments.

• Although Marks was quoted accurately, she did not have a chance to explain her last sentence, which seemed to cause most of the controversy. It would have been helpful if there had been a follow-up question about what Marks meant and she would have been able to clarify her remarks.

• There was a comment of similar length made by Marks prior to the comment transcribed above. That comment was:

I might have somewhat of a unique perspective … perception of on this because I come from a private school. I went to a private elementary school and a private high school, so for me, public education was an eye-opener. So I think right now the things that they’re facing, which private schools don’t face as much, right now is the pandemic – the safety of the students, pleasing the community, everything that has to do with this pandemic, whether it is wearing masks, not wearing masks, a vaccinated community, whether its having children cyber-schooled or not cyber-schooled, having your children quarantined – all of the problems that go along with this whole pandemic are obviously the biggest problem that I think we’re facing.

So, keeping in mind that she was answering the board president’s question, this quote was actually her answer was to what was the biggest challenge facing public education. The quote that caused concern was her statement about what she considered to be the second-biggest challenge facing public education today.

Why are we doing this?

Why is the Herald publishing all this information? Because we are the Cove’s most reliable news source.

We are not here to impose orthodoxy on the Cove. If we were, we’d be running highly biased opinions in every edition, arguing only from one specific point of view. We don’t do that.

We are here to provide a calm, reliable source of information to the Cove. Do we sometimes get it wrong? Yes. And when we do, we admit it and we publish notice of our error and we correct it.

We also are here to provide a forum for all those who live and work in the Cove to state an opinion. We don’t ignore, reject or censor opinions. We just don’t.

Don’t believe me?

I dare you to submit a responsible opinion on any topic that affects the Cove. We will print it just as you send it. If we don’t, you will be free to state on social media that the Herald is run by lying fraudsters, because it would be true.

All you need to do is this:

1. Send your opinion to [email protected] or 113 N. Market St., Martinsburg 16662. (Please type it.)

2. Include your name, the town where you live and a daytime phone number so we can contact you if we have a question. We will not publish your phone number.

3. Watch for your opinion to be published in the Herald.

Thanks for reading. And for sending us your opinion on a local issue.

Note: The recording of the school board meeting is online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzxfKMatzyA. Kelly Marks’ response begins at the 50-minute, 27-second mark. Thank you to the person who recorded and posted the meeting. That is a service to the community.