In The Pines: Opinions on Opinions

In the lead-up to the election, Sisters area residents are even more vigorous in expressing their opinions than usual. This I believe to be a good thing.

Publications such as newspapers balance a variety of agendas and necessities. The editor acts as a filter and gatekeeper, helping writers understand the larger context and audience for their work.

The editor typically influences their community and is influenced heavily by it. In a geographically based publication, the editor needs to understand the breadth, depth, and width of that audience, unless it is a niche publication aimed at singing to a particular choir.

Often the editor will present a combination of coverage that much of their audience is likely to immediately appreciate, mixed with items that some readers might find challenging or unpleasant.

Some people think their local newspaper or magazine should print everything: every unsubstantiated accusation, opinion, and press release. Some think a newspaper should send a reporter to cover their business or organization’s pet issue when that organization hasn’t produced adequate communications such as a well-written press release.

I often talk with people who assume that on-staff editors and freelance writers like me have unlimited time and resources to cover every single item and every viewpoint. This is frankly crazy.*

Most everyday people do not have time to sit and vet every link on their Facebook feed, to research the facts behind every TikTok video and YouTube conspiracy. (Please, don’t click “share” on those items.)

Similarly, professionals in the field receive an enormous flood of letters, emails, wire stories, and press releases. We do our best with the time we have, often working at very low rates because we care about our communities.

How about opinions? Does your local publication owe it to you to run every letter to the editor it receives? I would argue no. The Internet is a bastion for that kind of unfiltered, unmoderated, unedited content.

Online opinions and news alike grow overwhelming in the globalized media marketplace. If we trust the Internet and get our news from aggregators like MSN or Apple News, or from social media and video platforms, we’re more likely to get stuck in our belief bubbles.

We entrust profit-driven algorithms, LLMs, and AI to select which news items we will likely follow, read, watch, comment upon, and share. The technology doesn’t have our community’s best interests in mind. It is mindless, programmed to feed us whatever material is most likely to “engage” us.

Research shows that most people are more likely to be hooked by fear and anger than by reasonable headlines and thoughtful essays. Depending on our personalities, the technologies feed us apocalyptic, paranoid material or outrageous political shenanigans that get our self-righteousness brewing.

Those who think they’re too clever to be influenced by this stuff are deluding themselves.*

Basically, invisible robots are influencing our beliefs and how we interact with each other. I appreciate a human editor.

Our town is blessed to have our own newspaper with a highly engaged readership and an experienced editor at the helm, one that carefully steers the ship through often stormy seas. (Jim, if you cut that sentence, I’m going to holler censorship!)

What if your local paper publishes a column or letter to the editor with which you disagree? That means your editor is doing their job. That job isn’t to placate everybody; it’s to represent a multiplicity of voices and stories throughout a community.

Sisters Country is a polka-dot assortment of red, blue, and purple voters, plus whatever color we use for NAVs (non-affiliated voters). The Nugget rightly publishes opinions and articles addressing a wide range of interests and belief systems.

Recently, a letter proclaiming that women are too emotional to be leaders caused an uproar. The Nugget responded not by chastising the letter writer nor by deciding not to print the letter.

Instead, the newspaper ran it, then opened many pages of the following week’s edition to community opinions. A whole series of letters were published, exposing the original opinion as sexist and factually incorrect.

Many of those steaming responses made one mistake. Their beef wasn’t just with the odious opinion expressed. They were angry with The Nugget for publishing something they didn’t like.

But, surprising as it may be to progressives living an up-to-date 21st century life, loads of people believe women can’t handle a tough leadership job. (Please, folks: go give birth to a baby, run a business as many women do, head up household and childrearing leadership in the home, then take on the traditionally female-majority career of teaching, a.k.a. leading our society’s future. Then get back to me.)

So here we are. With the many letters published, now both the anti-women-in-leadership crowd and those with more contemporary beliefs have been exposed to other viewpoints. The issue was taken head-on. That’s a wonderful use of the printed commons that is your thriving local newspaper.

At a real publication, one with actual editors and community-based writers on board, someone thoughtful and knowledgeable sits down and thinks through local issues and opinions. It’s okay if we don’t always agree.

Note: I am not a Nugget employee and The Nugget has not endorsed my opinion.

*For more information, start with Humane Technology (humanetech.com) and “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism,” by Shoshana Zuboff.