As we tumble toward Town Meeting and Town Election, now seems a good time to restate Press policy regarding letters to the editor and political ads.
First of all, we welcome both. With a challenging budget and a raft of bylaws on this year’s warrant, healthy dialogue that educates, clarifies, or helps drive consensus is one way to ensure our small town direct democracy remains healthy and our decisions wise.
However, we do have a few rules, as stated in our letters policy, which appears adjacent to this editorial. We ask that letters be kept to 350 words. And while it’s obvious we cannot accept any letter that could be considered libelous, we will also reject personal attacks. It’s OK to attack policy but not the person.
We are also mindful of the power of misinformation and will not print material that we determine to be untrue. Fact checking is a challenge for our small staff. We do the best we can, but ask Press letter writers to do their homework and be prepared for our copy editors’ favorite question: How do you know that?
With two contested elections, we welcome letters of endorsement from those familiar with the skills, character, and experience of a candidate. Note that we will not publish letters of endorsement in the May 2 preelection issue of the paper. We will, however, publish political ads. Please read our policy regarding political ads for further details.
That’s it. Let the debates begin. We look forward to hearing from you.