4A — THE OBSERVER
Opinion
LABEL
SaTuRday, JunE 13, 2020
4A
Saturday, June 13, 2020
The Observer
FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK
Not all letters run
P
art of my job is
making the call on
publishing a letter
to the editor. We strive to
verify letters with a phone
call to the writer, so when
someone does not include a
contact number or does not
return a voice mail mes-
sage, that letter is not likely
to run.
That can be a bummer
when a letter writer makes
a good or interesting point.
I’m fine with run-
ning letters critical of The
Observer’s news coverage,
but I don’t tend to give the
green light to letters that
advocate for unsubscribing.
And I won’t run letters that
factually misrepresent our
coverage. One recent letter
we received, for example,
called out the newspaper
for having “filtered” news
that made the paper come
off as a “six page editorial.”
I don’t know what “fil-
tered” news is, but the
person asked The Observer
to report the news without
political bias. As an
example, the writer claimed
the newspaper ran front
page stories about Pres-
ident Barak Obama “at
least every other day,” and
in contrast, just one story
about President Donald
Trump made the front page
in six months.
I called the writer and
left a couple of messages
but did not hear back.
We’ve not run the letter.
I’ve been editor now about
seven months, and we ran
two front page stories on
the president in that span.
The first was when the
House of Representative
impeached the president
(Dec. 18, 2019, edition).
The second was when the
Senate acquitted the presi-
dent (Feb. 6 edition).
I checked some of the
bound volumes of The
Observer from when
Obama was president.
The Observer in early
2009 ran several 1A stories
featuring Obama and his
administration. All the sto-
ries were down page. The
front page stories ebbed
during the eight years he
was in office. At one point,
I found only a couple of
Obama stories in the span
of six months.
I did not look through
every edition of the news-
paper for those eight years,
but if we ran that letter
as is, we would not have
been publishing only an
opinion but an inaccurate
statement.
I also don’t feel an obli-
gation to continue all the
practices of past editors.
And maybe The Observer
a decade ago was the best
source locals had for get-
ting national news. I don’t
see that as our mission
today.
The writer’s point of put-
ting national news on the
front page of The Observer
— or any other local paper
— raises this question:
What local news stories
do subscribers not want to
read?
For a national story
to make page 1A of The
Observer, it has to carry
serious weight and historic
meaning. The impeach-
ment and acquittal of
Trump met that standard.
But running national news
more often on 1A means
not reporting on local news,
and that is what we are here
for, that’s the reason you
subscribe. You can find
national news any number
of ways. You want to know
what’s happening with
Union County seniors who
depend on meal delivery or
how your favorite restau-
rant is dealing with coro-
navirus requirements, then
you read The Observer.
Putting national stories
about Trump in the paper
comes with another edge:
Most national news we
could run is critical of the
president. I’m not sure our
readers want another dose
of that kind of coverage,
even if it’s accurate.
I’m left-leaning person-
ally and about as nonreli-
gious as you can get. But
objectivity matters to me,
even if we acknowledge no
one can be totally objective.
Political platforms and per-
sonal views do not figure in
our coverage and reporting,
whether that’s a downtown
protest for racial equity or
what’s happening with the
local food bank. What mat-
ters to me as the editor of
The Observer are the essen-
tials of good journalism —
accuracy above expediency,
providing crucial details,
compelling writing that
draws readers into stories,
minimizing harm when we
report on sensitive topics.
While I disagree with
arguments stating The
Observer’s news coverage
is liberal or conservative,
we’ll run letters expressing
those opinions and others,
so keep them coming. But
make sure we can con-
tact you to verify them.
And if your letter has some
“facts” that seem sketchy
or stretch into hyperbole,
maybe consider getting a
second source.
OUR VIEW
Oregon Legislature soon may act on police reforms
N
o justice, no peace. If
you have been near
any of the protests in
Eastern Oregon or elsewhere,
that is one of chants from the
crowd.
The Oregon Legisla-
ture soon may actually act
with genuine reform in the
upcoming special session. A
bipartisan group of lawmakers
and police chiefs, sheriffs and
the Oregon District Attorneys’
Association all have com-
mitted to at least one change in
the law. It would better ensure
appropriate disciplinary
actions taken against police
officers don’t get overturned.
Here’s the problem summed
up in an Oregonian story
from 2012: “In the past three
decades, Portland police chiefs
have fired officers who were
convicted of driving drunk
off duty, leaving dead animals
outside a black-owned busi-
ness, and selling “Smoke ‘Em,
Don’t Choke ‘Em” T-shirts to
officers after a man died in
police custody from a neck
hold.”
It seems outrageous, but
police chiefs had to rehire
every one of those officers.
An arbitrator overturned the
firings.
123RF/EO Media Group
The Oregon Capitol building adorned with the Oregon Pioneer with
downtown Salem in the background.
State Sen. Lew Frederick,
D-Portland, has wanted that
changed. He’s proposed bills
to change it. They failed.
Police unions have opposed
them.
His bills have said outside
arbitrators could not undo dis-
ciplinary actions as long as the
arbitrator agreed misconduct
occurred and the department
followed its own guidelines
when carrying out discipline.
Another bill that may move
in the special session would
require the Oregon Depart-
ment of Justice to take the lead
on investigations of police
shootings and when officers
caused deaths. Local district
attorneys work with local
police every day. That can
make it harder to be objec-
tive when investigating local
police. State Sen. Tim Knopp,
R-Bend, has been working on
a bill to make knee holds and
choke holds illegal.
Those aren’t the only
changes that may be coming.
On the national level, Sen.
Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, is
working to create a publicly
searchable database to track
law enforcement officers who
engaged in misconduct.
We all know how efforts
like these have turned out in
the past: They failed. If they
do move forward now, they
won’t solve every problem.
They will, though, help restore
respect and trust. They should
also make it easier to hold offi-
cers accountable who don’t
deserve to wear the badge.
local landmark in their honor.
Two strong candidates in our
view are Pierce Road and the
Pierce Library at Eastern Oregon
University.
Walter M. Pierce was elected
Oregon’s governor in 1922 with
the active support of the Ku Klux
Klan. While in office, according
to oregonencyclopedia.org,
Pierce revealed his lifelong
racist, anti-immigrant views —
tacitly supporting the Klan and
backing the anti-Catholic Com-
pulsory School Bill, a mea-
sure aimed directly at parochial
schools. Pierce promoted a 1923
law directed at immigrant Jap-
anese in Portland and the Hood
River Valley, prohibiting aliens
from owning or leasing land. He
also supported the incarcera-
tion of Japanese-Americans after
Pearl Harbor, campaigning in
1944 and 1945 against the return
of Japanese citizens and aliens to
their homes.
We encourage the citizens of
La Grande and Union County
to find a way to honor the Trice
family and end the misguided
attention given to Walter Pierce.
For more about Pierce and the
racism that pervades Oregon’s
history, check out www.vimeo.
com/230854021.
David and Cindy Morman
Bend
Your views
End the misguided
attention given to
Walter Pierce
In recent weeks, the commu-
nity has mourned the passing of
Doug Trice followed by wide-
spread protests over systemic
racism in our country. We live
in Bend now but spent the 1960s
and ’70s growing up with the
Trice family in La Grande.
To recognize Lucky Trice,
Doug Trice and the rest of this
gracious family’s many contri-
butions over the years and to
partially atone for the racism
they no doubt endured during
those same years, we believe it
would be appropriate to name a