For the last few weeks, I have been actively promoting a signature petition to put a question on the April 12 Town Election ballot, “Shall a Charter Commission be elected to frame a charter for the Town of Harvard?” I have publicized the campaign mostly through Nextdoor Harvard and personal email lists I have accumulated.
Because of my role as one of the owners-publishers of the Press, my partners and the editors of the Press believe, and I concur, that my activism puts the writers and editors of the Press in an awkward position. Do they support my initiative and potentially compromise their journalistic independence? Do they recuse themselves from reporting or editing if they have supported the petition? Do they report negative news about the initiative if that is what they find?
I want to assure everyone that reporting of the charter process will undergo the same independent editorial scrutiny that all news stories do. I will continue to manage advertising and business operations of the paper as I have always done, but I will no longer have any role whatsoever in reporting or editing Harvard news. This is not a major change. My contributions to editorial content of the Press have been minor in recent years, but to ensure the independence of the Press, I am recusing myself completely from editorial processes.
I have started a new website, harvardmatters.org, which I will use to publicize and discuss the charter process, as well as other similar issues that may come along. Although the new website is owned by the same publishing company, The Harvard Press LLC, the site will not be connected in any other way with The Harvard Press newspaper or its website, harvardpress.com. To be sure, the Press might (independently) choose to use the new website as a news source, but it will not be at my direction.
I take this action without reservation. I care too much about the newspaper that the writers, editors, and owners have developed together in the past 10 years, and its reputation as Harvard’s independent source of local news, to allow my personal initiatives to compromise that.
