L&T Publisher Earl Watt

Attending the annual Kansas Press Association convention last week Was an encouragement as well as an eye-opener to the challenges of providing local news.

It’s not easy to report on friends and acquaintances who are being questioned by the public. It’s much easier to either ignore it altogether or try to defend the actions we know are not appropriate.

And many outlets do just that.

But we have a duty to inform, even when it means losing a friendship.

Being a publisher is a tough profession. There are the fun jokes when I walk into a restaurant when somebody says, “Uh-oh the newspaper is here. We better stop talking,” or, “You’re not gonna quote me, are you?”

But there is the reality that some truly want to avoid their actions being made public even though they are serving in a public capacity.

I visited with the reporter covering Bourbon County where two recall efforts are currently under way, one against the county clerk and another against a county commissioner.

He knows both of them and their family members as well. And yet, he is covering the story as it happens.

Friendships strained? Absolutely. He mentioned how the husband of one of the people involved completely ignored him recently.

That’s the price we pay in journalism for the higher calling of keeping the community informed.

A recent online posting misstated the use of executive session as something that cannot be discussed.

There is absolutely nothing in the Kansas Open Meetings Act that requires executive session discussions to remain private. Not only that, there is nothing in KOMA that requires an executive session at all.

It is an optional, and there are times that option should be exercised.

But it is also ripe for abuse, and one sign of that could be when it is being excessively used. We’ve seen that in the past year in Seward County.

That has caused the public to raise concerns. When government happens behind closed doors, it is never trusted, and rightly so.

These are some of the items we discuss at the annual KPA convention, and it is good to see other journalists across the state battling those in power who seek to abuse authority rather than serve the public interest.

It’s also been mentioned that while there are those in the public who support open government, they do not like the approach of our coverage. When asked to provide what about our approach was concerning, no response was given.

Do we take violations of public trust seriously? Yes, yes we do. And our response may not be handled with kid gloves.

The best government could fail if it has lost public trust, something we have seen locally.

Some in positions of authority even use criticizing these questionable events as a reason to do nothing about it. It’s the old, “the harder you push, the harder I will push back.” That’s not a good place to be as a commissioner, but it is all too often their defense mechanism — ignore the will of the people as being out of touch or too ignorant to understand what it takes to run the county, and these so-called “violations” aren’t as bad as they are being made out to be.

Not a good place to be.

And it won’t keep us from performing our role of keeping you informed. Some have even postulated that we just want “click bait.”

Preposterous.

This is my home. Has been since I was born at Southwest Medical Center. My zip code has always been 67901.

I root for the success of Seward County, the City of Liberal, our schools and our college.

I wear their apparel.

And I also wear the quill and paper logo of a journalist. I think the best of our organizations until they give us a reason to question it, and that has certainly happened.

But we still have to tell the story as it happens, and we were recently recognized with 23 awards for doing just that including first place for investigative work on the county.

No matter what we report, someone will be unhappy because the coverage will be about someone we know. But we will continue to inform you. Darkness may be preferred by some, but we have a duty to shine the light.