It would be good to see more of this area’s intellectual vitality reflected in Ashland.news
By Herbert Rothschild
Traditionally, newspapers have endorsed political candidates and taken positions on issues. Large circulation newspapers had editorial boards. At small papers, the publisher usually made such decisions. Not that long ago, lots of people put their faith in those decisions. That’s why candidates for elected office would seek the endorsement of their local papers.
When we started Ashland.news, we didn’t discuss whether it should express editorial opinions. Ashland.news’ IRS status as a public charity forbids endorsing candidates or political parties. It does not, however, prevent taking positions on public policy issues, even when proposals related to them are formalized as legislative bills or ballot measures. We just haven’t done that.
As I look back on those formative months during the second half of 2021 and seek the reason why we didn’t consider performing that function, I think it was because our overarching intention regarding civic dialogue was to provide relevant and reliable information so that people could understand the issues and form their own opinions.
Last year, when we were making a two-minute video to submit with a grant application, Ashland Mayor Tonya Graham and OSF Artistic Director Tim Bond kindly agreed to testify about the community services we were providing. Graham recalled how difficult it had been, between the time the Daily Tidings folded and Ashland.news began, for the City Council to work through challenging issues absent a source of trustworthy information. When we became the alternative to the free-for-all of social media postings, she perceived that the job got much easier.
The mayor’s testimonial was immensely gratifying to us. It confirmed that we were fulfilling a major component of the Ashland.news mission.
All that said, one established truth about newspapers is that readers liked their editorial pages, especially the Letters to the Editor section. They were among of the most popular features of the papers. It seems that people enjoy the give-and-take of opinions. One reason may be that such exchanges prompt readers to consider what they themselves think about the matters under discussion more effectively than do news stories about them, even if those stories include what various people said at a council meeting or a public hearing.
If you open the Forum menu at the top of the Ashland.news home page, you’ll see what is, in effect, the editorial section of Ashland.news. There are two columnists listed — Chris Honoré and me (under the title of this column). Both Chris and I are holdovers from the Daily Tidings when Bert Etling was editing it. Chris is an excellent writer; regrettably, though, he now only publishes once a month. There’s also the highly useful City Corner, reserved for council members, the mayor and the city manager.
And then there’s you. If, that is, you choose to write either an op-ed (Viewpoints) or a letter. I wish more of you would avail yourselves of the opportunities these sections offer. When I go through the OLLI at SOU catalogs each quarter, I’m always struck by how intellectually vibrant and how deeply experienced and informed across a wide spectrum of life the people in this area are. There are few pleasures greater than engaging in conversation with such minds. I’d like to see Ashland.news become a more frequently used venue for such conversations.
While the reporting in Ashland.news is focused on local matters, plus county and statewide matters that impact our locale, there’s no need for your submissions to maintain that focus. Chris and I don’t. People here aren’t parochial in our interests or outlooks. We know that we live in a web of interconnections, and that unless we choose to be bewildered, self-pitying and angry victims of what goes on in Washington and other centers of power, we must try to understand them and then influence them to the extent our capacities allow.
And to help you overcome any inertia, let me put in a word for AI. ChatGPT and the like are extraordinarily useful tools. The one time I asked ChatGPT to write a piece roughly the length of a Relocations column, it handled the assigned subject matter with an impressive adequacy. Had it been a high school essay, I would have awarded it an A.
I don’t aspire to adequacy, so none of my columns are AI-generated. Of late, however, I’ve been using it for my web searches — or, I should say, for my initial web searches, because it’s important to go directly to the sources when factual accuracy is indispensable. In that regard, there are AI tools — ChatGPT is one of them — that identify at least some of the sources upon which they are drawing.
The point of this disclosure — I don’t regard it as a confession any more than I would think to confess that I use the internet itself — is that it has never been easier to access good information. So, don’t let the fear of making factual errors keep you from drafting an op-ed or a letter to the editor.
I’ll give you another reason for having a go at it, one that stems from the difference between writing out your opinions and speaking them. Writing affords the chance to look at what you’ve expressed and therefore to evaluate it. Are you confident that your assertions are well-grounded in fact? Is your line of reasoning coherent? Have you omitted what others might appropriately bring up, and might you have to amend your understanding were you to take those other points into account?
In sum, opinion writing is not just communication. It’s a process of dialogue with yourself and thus of discovery. I find that process highly rewarding. It has helped me become a more thoughtful — even, perhaps, a wiser — person. I commend it to you.
Herbert Rothschild’s columns appear Fridays. Opinions expressed in them represent the author’s views. Founding Ashland.news President Herbert Rothschild was a board member from 2021-2023. Email Rothschild at [email protected].
