SPRINGDALE — Nobody in Bentonville wants to read a long letter to the editor on Fayetteville High School,” I said Tuesday.
The words were barely out before I had to eat them - and right after lunch too.
Steve Caraway and I were getting out of the car for a midday meal at Susan’s Restaurant when the doomed sentence was spoken. The letter about Fayetteville High had appeared in that morning’s newspapers, including the Bentonville edition.
We got back from lunch. My computer lit up. There it was, waiting for me: A long, cogent, point-by-point rebuttal to the letter from Fayetteville. The author’s address - Bella Vista.
Those people from Bella Vista, they write good letters, the experienced clerks say. That’s because a lot of them are retired and they all ran businesses before they retired, apparently. They have all day to think about things. They can think about things and play golf at the same time, too, although all of them don’t play golf. Another letter to the editor told me that. Even the ones who don’t have all day to think about something have to deal with neighbors and friends who do.
That must keep a mind sharp.
I had decided that morning to recommend to the editorial board that we zone letters to the editor. At least we should separate the letters between Washington County and Benton County papers, I thought. That letter from Bella Vista killed that proposal. I didn’t bring the zoning idea up to the board the next day.
Everything should be looked at from more than one point of view.
The biggest half-truth in journalism is that every story has two sides. Every story has at least two sides, and they can’t all be seen from any one particular place.
People in Bentonville or Bella Vista shouldn’t be allowed an unchecked safety in their own thinking any more than people in Fayetteville. We’ll keep zoning some editorials. There are more topics to get to than we have space, for one thing. By we’re going to keep cross-pollination of ideas going as much as we can.
So if you live in Bentonville or Bella Vista and see a long letter to the editor about something going on in Fayetteville, now you know why.
Speaking of Bella Vista, readers there caught me on something after my column appeared last week. I wrote about the four cities we deliver to. There are five. Bella Vista’s in the same general population range as Bentonville. I tried to weasel out of it by saying that Bella Vista gets the Bentonville edition of the paper, but I know better. I was a reporter long enough to know when somebody’s been caught.
This is a short column today.
That makes more room for letters.
DOUG THOMPSON IS EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR.
Opinion, Pages 10 on 11/15/2009
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