On Friday morning I talked about journalism with attendees of our monthly “Coffee with the Editor” event.
During the hour-long conversation, one reader said pouring over the Bucks County Herald each week had, for her, a grounding effect. On its news pages, she has found that stories by local writers about local people, places and things provide her with a respite from the anxiety and ugliness of the stories that lead the national newscasts.
Her comments echoed in my head 36 hours later as one of those ugly stories — the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, (in Western Pennsylvania, no less) — forced me to contemplate the role of our community newspaper this week.
People read the Herald for stories they can’t get anywhere else, not for news they can get virtually everywhere else. That’s why you won’t find coverage of the assassination attempt on our news pages this week.
Don’t misunderstand. When national news stories develop here, we won’t shy away from them. If, say, the alleged shooter was from Bucks County, it’d be leading today’s edition. Had the rally been here, we’d have had reporters and photographers in attendance.
Neither of those is the case, though, so we’re staying true to our mission, which is covering our communities in the service of the people who live in them.
That said, the Bucks County Herald can’t simply ignore what happened in Western Pennsylvania Saturday night either.
In the coming days and weeks we’ll learn more about what motivated the now-deceased shooter.
For now, however, it seems reasonable to suggest that today’s political discourse has become so infused with toxic rhetoric that we need to take a deep collective breath and try to talk about our differences in a more-constructive way.
Already this week, we’ve received numerous Letters to the Editor from left- and right-leaning authors that, predictably, lay all the blame at the opposing party’s feet.
At the risk of sounding like I’m trying to broker peace between my 4-year-old and my 7-year-old, I am currently less interested in who started it and whose behavior was more egregious than I am in finding a path forward.
I could write eloquently — but probably uselessly — about how kindness and compassion matter (they do) and how what unites us is greater than what divides us (it is).
But, instead, I’m going to stick with what changes I can make at the Bucks County Herald to ensure that the civic engagement we’re promoting on our Opinion pages is reflective of the sort of civil discourse we’d like to see in our society.
Effective immediately, the deadline for Letters to the Editor and Guest Opinions, which had been noon Wednesday to be considered for the Thursday print edition, shifts to noon Tuesday to provide an additional day for fact-checking and back-and-forth between editors and letter writers.
Opinions that include statistics or quotes from political players must also include citations of source material, not for publication but to assist in the fact-checking process.
We’ve always flagged letters and guest opinions that contain incendiary rhetoric and name-calling. Going forward, we’ll be spiking submissions that dehumanize individuals, contain irresponsible exaggerations and make sweeping generalizations about entire groups of people or political parties.
The goal is not the censorship of uncomfortable opinions. It’s an Opinion section that values thoughtful and constructive discussion over shouting and polarization.
As a nation, we cannot tolerate political violence like we witnessed on Saturday night or on January 6, 2021 at the U.S. Capitol building.
As a newspaper, we cannot platform commentary that, if read by the wrong person, could nudge them toward the unthinkable.
John Anastasi is Editor-in-Chief of the Bucks County Herald and can be reached at janastasi@buckscountyherald.com.
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