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About Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (July 3, 2018)
4A • COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL • JULY 3, 2018 O PINION The First Amendment Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridg- ing the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition their Government for a redress of greivences. Letters to the Editor Policy Th e Sentinel welcomes letters to the editor as part of a community discussion of issues on the local, state and national level. Emailed letters are preferred. Handwritten or typed letters must be signed. All letters need to include full name, address and phone number; only name and city will be printed. Letters should be limited to about 300 words. Letters are subject to editing for length, grammar and clarity. Publication of any letter is not guaranteed and depends on space available and the volume of letters received. Letters that are anonymous, libelous, argumentative, sarcastic or contain accusations that are unsourced or without documentation will not be published. Letters containing poetry or from outside Th e Sentinel readership area will only be published at the discretion of the editor. Political/Election Letters: Election-related letters must address pertinent or timely issues of interest to our readers at-large. Letters must 1) Not be a part of letter-writing campaigns on behalf of (or by) candidates; 2) Ensure any information about a candidate is accurate, fair and not from second-hand knowledge or hearsay; and 3) explain the reasons to support candidates based on personal experience and perspective rather than partisanship and campaign-style rhetoric. Candidates themselves may not use the letters to the editor column to outline their views and platforms or to ask for votes; this constitutes paid political advertising. As with all letters and advertising content, the newspaper, at the sole discretion of the publisher, general manager and editor, reserves the right to reject any letter that doesn’t follow the above criteria. Send letters to: nhickson@cgsentinel.com or cmay@cgsentinel.com What are we willing to allow? “Th ere is nothing more terrifying than hearing multiple people get shot while you’re under your desk and then you hear the gunman reload.” P hil David and Anthony Messenger are journalists. And aft er the shooting at their newsroom in Maryland on Th ursday, June 28, they’re still alive. At least fi ve of their colleagues are not. In the hours By Caitlyn May cmay@cgsentinel.com aft er another shooting, I don’t know what to say other than, as they hid under their desks, journalists of the Capital Gazette newspaper sent tweets like the ones above and reported on the incident. As of Th ursday aft ernoon, there’s not a lot known about what happened in Maryland. Th e shooter is in custody. He’s a white male. He had an issue with a story the newspaper ran back in 2011. He used a “long gun.” But it’s not about guns because he could have attacked that newsroom with an axe or a knife or a bomb. It’s about deciding that the solution to confl ict is violence — and a society that condones such a solution. It’s also about setting a precedent that if an individual feels their ideology is being threatened by fact — or that their facts are being skewed by fi ction — during the commission of a crime, that it validates their intent to do harm. Th at notion suggests that their action is a measured choice rather than just a form of primal justice. We can’t kill people. Period. And the penalty for writing something that someone else disagrees should never warrant a death sentence. Th e most serious legal off ense a journalist can commit within his or her profession is to maliciously defame someone through intentional libel. However, for those indiscretions the civilized course of action mandated by the laws that govern our society is to engage in due process — in front of a judge, not the barrel of a gun initiated by a jury of one. I don’t know what happened in Maryland. But I do know if we allow space for discourse that suggests the slightest validation for these actions as a result of the current rhetoric surrounding journalism, then we’ve moved beyond the arena of civilized debate and into a tribalism that cannot support a free society. Five people are dead. I don’t know what to say other than what Chase Cook, a reporter at the Capital Gazette tweeted on Th ursday aft ernoon: “I can tell you this: We are putting out a damn paper tomorrow.” HOW TO CONTACT YOUR REPS Oregon state representatives Oregon federal representatives • Sen. Floyd Prozanski District 4 State Senator PO Box 11511 Eugene, Ore. 97440 Phone: 541-342-2447 Email : sen.fl oydprozanski@ state.or.us • Rep. Cedric Hayden Republican District 7 State Representative 900 Court St. NE Salem, Ore. 97301 Phone: 503-986-1407 Website: www.leg.state.or. us/hayden Email: rep.cedrichayden@ state.or.us • Rep. Peter DeFazio (House of Representatives) 405 East 8th Ave. #2030 Eugene, Ore. 97401 Email: defazio.house.gov/ contact/email-peter Phone: 541-465-6732 • Sen. Ron Wyden 405 East 8th Ave., Suite 2020 Eugene, Ore. 97401 Email: wyden.senate.gov Phone: (541) 431-0229 • Sen. Jeff Merkley Email: merkley.senate.gov Phone: 541-465-6750 C ottage G rove S entinel (541) 942-3325 Administration Jenna Bartlett, Group Publisher Gary Manly, General Manager ........................................................Ext. 207 gmanly@cgsentinel.com Jakelen Eckstine, Marketing Specialist ...........................................Ext. 213 jeckstine@cgsentinel.com Park Nelson, Marketing Specialist .................................................Ext. 203 pnelson@cgsentinel.com Editorial Ned Hickson, Managing Editor........................................541-902-3520 ..... nhickson@cgsentinel.com Caitlyn May, Editor. ..........................................................................Ext. 212 cmay@cgsentinel.com Zach Silva, Sport Editor ....................................................................Ext. 204 zsilva@cgsentinel.com Customer Service Mandi Jacobs, Offi ce Manager .........................................................Ext. 200 Legals, Classifi eds ...................................................Ext. 200 mjacobs@cgsentinel.com Production Ron Annis, Production Supervisor ..................................................Ext.215 graphics@cgsentinel.com (USP 133880) Subscription Mail Rates in Lane and Portions of Douglas Counties: 10 Weeks .........................................................................................$11 One year ..........................................................................................$41 e-Edition year .................................................................................$35 Rates in all other areas of United States: 10 weeks, $15; 1 year, $53; e-Edition $35. 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