What an old editor said

 I once heard an old newspaper editor say, “To be an editor, you have to project confidence and humility at the same time.”

If you live in a small town with a good newspaper, you know the editor. He or she insists that the paper cover everything, especially the most controversial topics people are discussing.

The editor insists on fair, accurate and balanced reporting. He or she asks readers to submit letters offering their own views and prints them quickly — while they’re still news. The editor is diligent about running opposing views, especially those that take the newspaper and its editor to task for their failures.

Typically, the editor is not very interesting. But the newspaper is. It’s interesting because it’s a reflection of a community, with all its disagreements and different points of view.

Unfortunately, a lot of communities do not have good newspapers. They have newspapers that avoid controversies, allow advertisers to influence coverage, and never question what kinds of things people in the community would have to do to make their place better.

Unforgivably, they try to focus public attention on the trivial, rather than on the serious.

In such communities, there’s no reason to read the paper. There’s no reason to write letters to the editor or to know her. There’s no reason to know whether the editor has confidence in what she’s doing or a sense of humility that comes with an understanding of how often she and the newspaper have failed.

• Note: For the best account of the relationship between a good newspaper and its community, see Henry Beetle Hough, Country Editor; New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc. 1940.