|An Editorial|
We’re posting this with the polls having just closed and election results yet to come. For us, and probably for you, the end of election season comes as something of a relief. It means an end to the barrage of alarming and shout-y ads on TV, alarming and shout-y pleas in the inbox and alarming and shout-y political flyers in the mailbox. Not to worry, holiday catalogs and year-end fund-raising appeals will fill the void and, for some of us, alarming and shout-y messages about Medicare plans.
In our role as editors, the end of election season means we can exhale a little. A return to covering typical town events and activities is welcome for a host of reasons. But while it’s still fresh, we wanted to take this opportunity to share a bit about how election season looks from within NGX and to address some broader topics.
Someone recently asked one of us, “Does NGX post endorsement letters for Republicans?” A fair question. In fact, we’ve never gotten an endorsement letter for a Republican candidate. We can only publish what you submit. And when you do submit letters, we run them if they conform to our submission guidelines and values. Consider the variety of perspectives NGX has published concerning the work of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee, the flurry of pieces regarding the Memorial Day parade.
We have even bent our own rules in order to accommodate divergent views. When then-Select Board member George Colby’s public remarks at a board meeting were censured by the Select Board and a recall got under way, we overrode our own rule and published letters from outside New Gloucester so there would be more statements in his defense. We later amended our policy to explicitly allow such exceptions.
There is nothing casual about our review of and decisions on submissions. NGX’s guidelines are researched, adapted from those of other publications but with a particular community slant because we are neighbors and because we are volunteers. We don’t have the insulation of a corporate shell or the back-up of an attorney on speed-dial.
We are equal opportunity disappointers, frustrating neighbors to our left and our right alike with our decisions. We have declined to publish letters from our more conservative neighbors that we thought were defamatory, inaccurate, or violative of third-parties’ privacy. Our neighbors on the left have—repeatedly and recently–seen NGX decline to publish pieces that in our judgment didn’t represent constructive community discourse.
We’ve also spent hours working with writers from across the spectrum of topics and viewpoints—right, left and agnostic–to help them focus their pieces, add needed context, hone a message that is both accurate and constructive. That work—an editorial conversation—is invisible to you readers, as it should be.
In short, we take care. That is no less true of how we think about articles and news. We continue to wrestle with what’s appropriate and fair to publish that has political or partisan elements, including in the run-up to elections and especially once voting is under way. Some outlets don’t accept political press releases. We can understand why. Since none of us are professional journalists, we have sought and followed expert guidance about what to publish and what not to publish, including quite recently. Frankly, it’s been heartening and humbling that an authority on press standards would take the time to advise NGXchange.
Predictably perhaps, we occasionally hear that somebody has written off NGX as biased and encouraged others to do the same. That’s their prerogative, of course. But seeing NGX through such a narrow lens ignores the breadth of our coverage, and worse, writes off the many contributors—neighbors, all—who have made NGX the community resource you’re reading today. You can meet our contributors here. Anyone who watches and re-watches a lengthy meeting to write it up, entrusts us with a heartbreaking obituary or takes the risk of publicly sharing a personal essay deserves gratitude, not dismissal.
We’d complain that it’s all a bit thankless, but we can’t: we actually get thanked all the time. Residents tell us they are more on top of happenings around town than they’d been in years because of NGX. Town staff tell us of residents taking an interest—not airing complaints or concerns, just inquiring—because of something they read in NGX. We hear NGX mentioned at town meeting, at the Select Board, at the hopper at the Transfer Station.
And we see you readers. Our routine posts draw gratifying numbers of readers, and when something really catches your interest—just lately, stunning contrails, a hometown food truck, a deeply researched report on farms—readership and shares reach truly remarkable levels.
We’re incredibly grateful to all who read NGX and to all who have contributed in the past or may contribute going forward. The best way we know to express our appreciation is to continue to take care with what you share with us and what you read.
— Debra and Joanne
