You’re In Good Hands

Since we bought The Times more than three years ago, we've made a lot of changes we believe have improved local readers' access to good and timely information. One of those changes is more indepth and, at times, critical reporting of public agencies such as the hospital district, schools, city governments, county government and so on.

One of the most important reasons for this approach is the need for local residents and tax payers to know how their hard-earned contribu- tions to these agencies are be- ing spent and what decisions their elected officials make as stewards of these funds.

This is nothing personal. In our coverage, we're not out "to get" anyone. We're merely trying to reflect the truth and present it in a fair way to our readers.

This role of newspapers as a watch dog is time-honored, though perhaps more com- mon in larger communities than in small towns.

By now, many readers have grown used to our more critical reporting and have come to expect it. We will continue covering ALL the news in our towns: good, bad or simply informative or entertaining. That's our job.

That said, there have been times when some of our readers or officials connected to the agencies we cover have noted we focused too much on the negative and not enough on the positive or that we sensationalized our headlines.

Although we strive to present our news coverage in a compelling way with good photography and titles that capture the pulse of a news story, it is not our intention to go overboard. We want to be objective, fair and balanced always and everywhere ex- cept on our opinion page clearly marked as such.

To this end, the appoint- ment of Ken Graham as our new editor, will reassure readers that, if anything, our commitment to this goal is as strong as ever and our news coverage will be in very ca- pable hands.

Ken, who owned and ran the Blue Mountain News for five years until it closed almost a year ago, is well known and well liked in our valley, particularly in Day- ton, where he is perhaps a bit better known than in Waits- burg or Prescott.

But most importantly, he is a journalist of integrity and his appointment as the Times' new editor underscores our intention of meeting the highest standards in our profession and our industry. I'm giving Ken the freedom to execute his own vision of our community news coverage, a style I know will sustain, if not further strengthen, the trust readers have in us as a news source.

Our whole team - Dayton Reporter (and now Assis- tant Editor) Morgan Smith, Sports Writer Dan Groom, Community News Coordi- nator Robyn Dunleavy, Ads & Legals Manager Larry Davidson, Office Manager Tawnya Richards and me - is delighted to welcome Ken on board. I hope you will join us in congratulating him as well.