It seems to me, as editor of this newspaper, that ever since Donald Trump became president (both in 2016 and in 2024), people’s opinions about him, politics in general, and state and national issues became more prevalent in newspapers – this one included. Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press are Constitutional rights but there are many platforms where one can express their opinions, especially on the World Wide Web.

Getting caught up in the national news is easy to do with TV, newspapers and the internet being available instantaneously.

We are guilty as charged when it comes to allowing people’s letters, press releases and advertising bashing the national news. However, comments on Facebook and Disqus about our being one-sided have been unfair. With the local Democratic party being more active than the Republican party as far as events are concerned, we have published their press releases. I, personally, handle the press releases and we have been sent very few releases from the Republicans – same with letters of support for the national news out of the White House.

That said, we encourage both local Republicans and Democrats to continue to send press releases of their events.

Also, we are moving forward toward balancing our Letters to the Editor section. We would like to have more letters and columns focusing on local issues, not national news.

I guess you could say that our readers have been overwhelmed with national politics in our Letters section, which is why we want to focus more on local issues.

I remember my mentor, Mary Brewer, doing much the same thing years ago when a letter writer kept writing about his distaste for one of the Bush presidents. She asked him politely to stop after weeks of repeating what he thought were the shortcomings of the president.  

Thank you.