Commentary: Reviewing letters policy in light of election season

We see the opinion page as a playground for readers to meet new people and share thoughts and ideas. You might not like what is said on the playground, but everyone is invited to participate.

We encourage letters from all of our readers. We don’t necessarily agree with the letters we run, but as long as they are not malicious and do not have inaccurate or misleading information, we print them. Of course, we are human, and sometimes letters slip through that should have been more carefully considered prior to publication.

If a letter is in question, we will let you know which parts of our letters policy it violates and give you suggestions on how to get it printed.

With election season upon us, letters submissions have gone up — as has our need to vet the letters coming through. The most common issue is a letter going over our 350 max word limit. Sometimes we get letters that are not civil, i.e., contain vulgar or inappropriate language, or malicious, false or misleading statements. As for the language, those letters will be sent back. If we believe information is false or misleading, we will ask for sources.

Citing sources is a new addition to our letters policy — and, as with most of our policies, comes from lessons learned the hard way. But factual information also needs to have a cited source.

Letters attacking a private individual rather than an expressed opinion are another common violation. And it’s becoming increasingly common for letters to attack people based on gender, race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, disability or age. Those letters will be rejected outright.

Because all of this vetting takes time, the deadline for letters has been moved to Fridays at noon for the upcoming edition.

It’s rather simple: Generally, if letters are truthful, can be proven as truthful and are not personally attacking a private individual, they will be printed. Elected and public officials may be named — but you still need to cite your sources.

An editor’s note is used on some letters. We prefer to have the letter writer clarify or edit on their own, but sometimes we need to put a note showing where the information was discovered by the letter writer. This tells us and you, our readers, that it was legitimately researched, or the writer, at the least, attempted to verify the information.

Our editors’ notes are written by the editor or publisher. The reporting team then reviews the note during the proofing and editing process. It’s not a foolproof system, but again, our goal is to get your voice heard in our communities and to be as fair as possible in the process.

What will this look like in practice? Here are some examples, first printed in a 2021 column:

(COMMON LETTER) Johnny sends a letter about school lunch. He has an opinion about why the school serves fish sticks instead of pizza. He hates fish sticks and says most of his friends do, too. Columbia Gorge News will call or email Johnny and let him know we received his letter, and ask him to clarify how he knows his friends hate fish sticks; he says they all throw them in the garbage together on fish-stick day. Good enough. Columbia Gorge News agrees to print the letter.

(LETTER INCLUDING FACTS) Johnny sent in a letter about school lunch with the same information as before. But he goes on to say the fish sticks are wasting the school’s funding because most end up in the garbage when served at lunch. He also said the average amount of money wasted each day on fish sticks is X dollars. Columbia Gorge News will call or email Johnny and ask him to clarify how he knows how much money was wasted by the school on the days they serve fish sticks. Johnny says he did some research and agrees to share his research with us. CGN reviews the research and agrees to print Johnny’s letter with an editor’s note citing where Johnny found his information.

(LETTER INCLUDING PERSONAL ATTACK) Johnny sent in his fish stick letter, with information on his research, but went on to say he blames the school lunch server, Ms. Smith, because she always serves him extra fish sticks. Columbia Gorge News will call or email Johnny and let him know personal attacks are not allowed on our opinion page, and that he needs to edit or remove this part of the letter before we will print it. Johnny agrees to do so. In some cases, simply removing names can fix this issue. Johnny could revise the letter to blame the school for serving him extra fish sticks without personally naming Ms. Smith.

(LETTER INCLUDING INFORMATION THAT ISN’T CITED) Johnny sent in his fish stick letter, with information on his research, but without the personal attack. He goes on to say he hates the school lunch program because they never make him the food he likes to eat. He is going to ask his friends to boycott the school lunch program. They will eat peanut butter and jelly for as many days as it takes for the school to change their school lunch program to serve the foods Johnny and his friends like. Johnny said other nearby schools in the area always serve food the students like. Columbia Gorge News will call or email Johnny and ask him to support his claim about other schools with facts before his letter runs. Johnny’s friends from the other schools do their own research and show Johnny that their school cafeterias waste less at lunch. Johnny adds his friends' research to the letter and explains his sources in his letter. CGN agrees to publish his letter with an editors’ note about where Johnny found his information.