The letters to the editor are one of my favorite things about running a newspaper even though they sometimes give me a giant headache.
We are lucky to hear so many different voices in the Independent each week, and letter writers are an essential part of that. They add to our knowledge of the community by commenting on articles that we have published, as Stephen Greenberg does this week on caring for elders, and by raising questions that the newspaper has not previously considered — as in Channing Wilroy’s letter last week about the Provincetown Town Hall clocks and the sandwich boards on Commercial Street.
Two weeks ago, Tabitha Vevers related a childhood memory about her parents’ dune shack — a story that adds to our understanding of a current controversy. Sometimes, the letters are just fun, as in this week’s notes from Eliza Miller and Frank Gallant about the blueberry muffins at the late, lamented Lighthouse in Wellfleet.
As our letters policy says, they “may be edited for clarity, accuracy, conciseness, and good taste.” My philosophy of editing letters was influenced by my experience of writing letters to the New York Times and occasionally having one published there. When the Times is considering printing a letter, an editor always responds and checks all the factual statements in it, requiring the writer to provide documented sources. We do that at the Independent as well.
Most of our correspondents are a pleasure to work with and seem to appreciate my attempts to clarify and tighten their writing and keep them from saying things that aren’t true. But some are offended. “It’s my letter,” they argue, sometimes accusing me of practicing “censorship.”
In a sense, they are right — although actual censorship is generally understood to be the suppression of words or ideas by the government, not by editors and publishers. I know there are some newspapers that will allow almost anything that isn’t clearly libelous to appear in their letters columns. We try for a stricter standard.
The standard of accuracy is sometimes hard to judge. For example, in last week’s letters, I allowed Jon Slater to write that Truro town government “operationally is the town manager’s and so is the budget” and to deny that the budget is set by the select board — even though those statements are mostly false. Truro’s town charter says the town manager prepares the budget for the select board, but Slater argues that the town manager controls it. He doesn’t.
Slater organized the online petition calling for the dismissal of the current town manager, which hundreds have signed. Other sections of his letter made wild accusations about town officials that he refused to document when I asked him for evidence. Those I edited out.
But should we have published Slater’s main claim, that Truro’s government and budget are controlled by staff? Maybe not. In this case, I decided it was important to put his false logic out in public where people could see it — and then take an ibuprofen.
