Newspapers have long served an important function in the lives of the communities they serve. That's especially true at election time, especially in a small town, as citizens turn to their community newspaper as a primary source of information on who's running and what those candidates are saying about what they would do for the community, if elected. It's a responsibility we at The Chief, and at other community newspapers, take seriously.
Election time is a time when our responsibility to provide fair, balanced coverage is magnified. It's easy, after all, for readers to leaf through the pages of The Chief and compare which candidates received more, or more prominent, coverage than did others - who had his or her photos printed and who didn't, for example. We've even seen readers go through stories and count, line by line, which candidates' comments received more or less "ink" in announcing their candidacy, or in stories about candidates' forums.
That's all fine. It keeps us on our toes, prompting the staff of The Chief to weigh each coverage decision carefully. Nothing will ever be exactly equal or fair by everyone's definition, but we do our best. We also recognize that in this world of the Internet and social media, we're not people's only source of information. The Chief -both our print and online editions -is just one of a number of outlets by which voters get their information about election issues and candidates. It's a free marketplace of ideas out there, even more so than in the past, and we welcome the chance to participate in whatever way we can, to compete for attention from citizens both in print and online.
That said, a few ground rules are in order. We will not endorse candidates because we believe doing so would put too much power in the hands of a few and that voters can gather their information and make up their own minds. We will accept candidate endorsement letters for publication, but we will publish them all at once - on Nov. 18, the day before general voting takes place - with a strict 200-word limit. As with other letters, endorsement letters (quoting from our letters policy) "may be subject to editing for length, grammar and legality."
We also urge readers to get engaged by attending and participating in one or more of the upcoming candidates' forums -the Nov. 2 event sponsored by the Squamish Arts Council, the Nov. 7 one being put on by The Chief, the Squamish Chamber of Commerce, Squamish CAN and MySquamish.com, the Nov. 9 event being staged by the Squamish Off Road Cycling Association (SORCA) - and then get out and vote. As a community, Squamish is at a crossroads on a number of fronts and its future success rides at least partly on citizen involvement. After the dismal 41.9 per cent voter turnout during 2008 municipal election, there's nowhere to go but up.
- David Burke
