Regarding the online free speech case—-

As a reporter at a small-town (three-times-a-week, 8,000 circulation) newspaper in rural South Carolina, I appreciate this write-up of yours. As you can imagine, I’m a huge proponent of free speech … responsible free speech, that is. I agree with you that it appears Melvin went too far. At the same time, I can understand any public official’s (and even private citizens, too) frustration at dealing with the press (on various levels) and/or independent content providers, such as yourself.

What struck me most was your comments about the credibility gap with mainstream news venues. Our paper “competes” with the vastly larger newspaper in our capital city about one-half hour away. They even “stole” one of our news reporters in an attempt to prove they are making our community a part of their coverage. We often hear comments from both citizens and advertisers about how great it is that the larger paper is doing this. People tend to think that since we’re the “small”, “hometown” paper, we’re somehow inferior.

Our former reporter has only beaten us to a story once. In many cases, their stories are quite old to local readers, although I admit their paper’s wider circulation brings these stories to new readers.

I bring this up because we are the paper of record for the town of 7,000 and county of 53,000. We are the ones that, with a vastly smaller staff, must make sure we not only back up what we write in our articles, but what we say in our columns (all three reporters, including myself, are columnists). We have to remember to separate the opinions we express in our columns from the balance we must provide in our articles. It’s a fine line and, so far, I know of no instance where we’ve crossed it.

On top of this, I am reminded of something that made me seethe last year during the sniper shootings in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia. WUSA-TV 9, a CBS affiliate, and The Washington Post, perhaps one of the world’s most important newspapers, cited an anonymous source working on the case who mentioned the discovery of a tarot card at one of the crime scenes. It was later revealed that the card had a note attached to it specifically directing the police not to mention the tarot card to the press. Someone blabbed, and — in an effort to be “#1″ — WUSA and the Post blasted the information for all to see. Former Montgomery County (Md.) Police Chief Charles Moose has consistently contended that the revelation may have led to more shootings.

My point is that, to me and many others I speak to, the “big media,” whether in print, online or on the air, are the ones with the credibility gap, not smaller papers like mine and not independent providers like you. They have been clouded by the need to be first instead of right. WUSA and the Post could have easily come to an agreement with the source to have exclusivity to the tarot card information AFTER the suspects were caught. In my estimation, the station and paper’s credibility would have gone up if they had done that, not down.

We, on the other hand, knowing that we must provide quality reporting/content in order to survive, take the time and the care to check what we are doing and correct ourselves if we have not. Are we perfect? Absolutely not.

I, however, would like to think we do a better job of trying to earn the public’s trust.

Thank you.