Editor’s Note
Back in the old days — that’s less than a decade and before there were such things as blogs and interactive conversations with readers — editors used to respond to their newspaper readers with an “editor’s note.” Sometimes it clarified a point made in a letter to the editor. Sometimes it offered a correction. Sometimes it was just a simple explanation. An editor’s note was a handful of sentences; maybe a four or five paragraphs. It was always a personal link between the editor and the reader. Only difference between it and today’s blog is the immediacy and the platform. Welcome to Editor’s Note.

Tonight you were part of history

November 5th, 2008 at 01:01am Linda Grist Cunningham

Tonight as the newsroom quieted down, settling into the last hour of detailed work before the press start, I shared with them this note. It’s for them, and it’s personal. I wanted you to share it, as well.

Tonight you were part of history…

Every 100 years or so, a wrenching shift in generational history takes place. The last one came in the late 1920s, and the world that followed was different. Tonight marks another such before-and-after. Coupled with the tectonic shifts in the global economy and the world’s unrest, Barack Obama’s presidency will create the environment in which a new world will grow. We can choose to create the new world of hope that Obama so eloquently challenges us to become; we can choose to do otherwise. May we choose wisely.

I watched you tonight, each of you in this newsroom who did what needed doing, who rose successfully to master a hundred headaches, almost disasters and assorted profanity-inspiring glitches. You worked as a team. You came in on your days off, stayed late, came back, and connected yourselves to what journalists have done since we drew stick figures on cave walls: We told the stories of a people.

Today and tonight you told that story well. You served almost 300,000 people in the Rock River Valley. You did important work that cannot be replaced by a technology, a widget or some “user generated content” provider. You worked with integrity, accuracy, credibility and you maintained the trust between us and our readers. We in this News Tower have done this so many times before. We told the stories of space shuttles, of tornadoes and NIU campus killings. Of elections in 2000 so close we couldn’t call them. Of World Trade Centers and wars in Vietnam. Of Nixon and 25 percent unemployment. Of children dancing on stage at the Coronado. Of weddings and funerals. Of state titles in sports. We tell the stories that make the muscle of who we are, of who our readers are.

For me, for the “old” ones in this room, we have been here in the Tower through so many of them. Tonight, though, is different. Tonight is a before-and-after moment. I am humbled that I could share it with you, with a newsroom that knows in its soul — from our most senior staff to our youngest — that we do more than a job. We do the right thing. I am proud of you. Godspeed.

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4 Comments Add your own

  • 1. steelhawk  |  November 7th, 2008 at 10:59 pm

    Get control of yourself. Your whole industry should be ashamed of yourselves for your reporting on this election. Never in history has the media been so obviously tilted toward one candidate over the other. Hiding news stories that might shed a negative light on one candidate while purposely slamming the other candidate. Biden\’s gaffes were totally ignored by your paper. While every breath Sarah Palin took was analyzed in a way to purposely put her in a negative light. This is a terrible practice that was applied daily with one purpose in mind, to tear this woman down because she was actually successful stimulating her base. Tearing people apart to further your political agenda is not what your paper should be doing. The news media is supposed to be trusted to report the news without slant either way. You can\’t proclaim with a straight face that your paper even came close to fair and honest reporting of these candidates. But rest assured you aren\’t alone. You all should be ashamed, but as witnessed in your blogs, your not ashamed, you\’re actually proud. I know I\’ve purchase my last Rockford Register Star and I\’m sure that I\’m not the only one.

  • 2. Linda Grist Cunningham  |  November 10th, 2008 at 12:55 pm

    Where do you get the idea that “the news media is supposed to be trusted to report the news without slant either way”? Though it’s always best when journalists push for neutrality, hundreds of years of history show it’s never been true that there was no “slant either way.” It’s only been a handful of years since publisher-owned newspapers were the voice of their owner.

  • 3. PJ  |  November 11th, 2008 at 7:40 pm

    I guess you got your answer steelhawk. You must really be old to even think that the news media is supposed to be trusted to report the news without slant either way. How dare you. We now have publisher owned newspapers that can print anything they want as long as it is not slanted.

    Myself, I preferred it better when we had just plain reporters that would report the actual news rather than biased journalists that are hired only if they support the opinions of their publisher.

    And they say that the internet is a cesspool of information. To me that just means the internet is a step above the printed media, Regardless of how they try to jusify their actions, the printed media is on the way out and deservedly so. The public deserves better.

  • 4. Greg  |  November 11th, 2008 at 9:18 pm

    One of the reasons so many people think the news they read on Web sites is less-slanted is that they are reading the one(s) that are most slanted toward their own views. If you don’t agree with what you’re reading, you simply click to another site that is more inline with your political beliefs. Everyone’s happy.

    In a perfect world there would be 3 or 4 or more newspapers in every town — each with a different “slant.” That’s not an economic reality, however. If you don’t agree with the local paper (singular in almost all cities), you’re probably going to deem it wrong. That’s not usually the case. Often it’s just that it’s different. People with radical beliefs have trouble grasping this concept. If the RRS had, as you say, “slanted” the coverage to the far right, it’s quite unlikely that steelhawk would have written to complain.

    Linda makes a valid point: newspapers aren’t unbiased now and they never have been (have you noticed that there are newspapers named the Star-Democrat, Republican-American, etc.). Most papers leave their political stance to the editorial page and to their columnists. Standard news coverage is as balanced as possible. In nearly 15 years in newsrooms, I never heard an editor suggest a story needed to have a different political bent.

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