Aside from a run-off for the District 17 state senate, the election season ended Tuesday, when Golden Triangle went to the polls in what election officials say were modest numbers.
During the campaign season, The Dispatch sought to provide news and information, insight and commentary on some of the races.
We ran profiles of the four men who were seeking to fill the unexpired one-year term of state senator Terry Brown, who died in September. We also profiled the candidates in the area’s lone contested judicial race.
We covered a candidates forum at MUW, as well, and would have covered other similar events if the other races had staged them.
All these are a natural function of a community newspaper. We believe providing such information encourages residents to vote and helps inform the decisions they make at the ballot box.
In past elections, we have chosen to endorse candidates, a decision that either draws praise or criticism, depending on which candidate we favor compared to the reader’s preference.
We did not endorse any candidates in this election, not because we wanted to avoid criticism, but because we were not able to form a strong preference for a particular candidate. We felt it was enough to provide information on the candidates and let voters reach their own conclusions.
That said, The Dispatch did not avoid criticism in the days that lead up to Tuesday’s election. There were primarily two instances where readers took us to task.
The first was an Oct. 30 news story we published on the financial difficulties of circuit court judge candidate Monique Montgomery.
Through a routine check of candidates’ court records, we discovered the Internal Revenue Service had placed liens in excess of a half-million dollars against Montgomery. We felt this was important information for the voters to know. We also provided Montgomery the opportunity to comment on those tax liens. We believed that was important, too
For the same reason, we felt it was important to note that Montgomery’s opponent in the race, incumbent Lee Coleman, had made a very controversial decision in his handling of the Alan Redden case last year. We reminded voters of this because we feel a sitting judge is accountable for the decisions he makes.
The other criticism came in regard to an editorial page piece written by our columnist, Slim Smith, on the Oct. 29 State Senate candidate debate at MUW’s Poindexter Hall.
As he often does, Smith took an irreverent view of the event, invoking the Mark Twain quote suggesting that a cat might be preferable to the four candidates who took the stage that evening.
In a column dripping with satire, Smith was an equal-opportunity “ox-gorer” and no candidate escaped unruffled. The rebukes were generally mild and not intended to sway public opinion toward any candidate.
Smith’s column added an element of levity to our coverage, which did include a front page account of the candidates’ performances. We believe there are many times when an off-beat opinion piece adds value to the discussion. People talked about the column and in doing so, the candidates and their merits.
Now that the election is over, we stand behind the choices we made in our coverage, while acknowledging we did not always please some people with our approach.
Of course, the surest way to avoid criticism is to remain silent.
And that’s the one choice we were not willing to make.
Smith’s write-in cat did not qualify for the run-off.
No harm, then, was done.
Once-ruffled feathers are once more smooth.
Until the next election cycle, that is.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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