Plunging into my Wed. Journal yesterday as usual, though also looking for a letter I’d sent in — it wasn’t there! — I found myself absorbed by discussion of the recent blacks-only assembly at the high school, including a tantalizing next-day account of the special board meeting that had drawn 100 people.
Systematically going from page to page, I came to the page where the columns are, and saw two side by side about the assembly at least as background, and I thought, OK, it’s a hot issue with Oak Parkers reportedly of several minds on the matter, let’s see what’s here.
Unfortunately, it was time to move on because there was nothing there. Both columns, here and here, by citizens who care about their community, thought the blacks-only assembly was a good idea! Say what? Nothing from citizens who care about their community who thought it was a bad idea?
It didn’t help any when I did move on, to the next page, and found featured editor Ken Trainor’s regular column there, a rather lengthy meditation on the need to think hard about race relations, take a deep breath, and DO THE RIGHT THING.
But where was a guest-column pro and con on the previous page about what the right thing was in this black-assembly matter? Forget giving both sides of an issue as an ethical matter. Tall weeds there, I’ll take a pass if you don’t mind. I’m talking about reader interest. Does the Journal want readers’ eyes glued to the page or glazed over in the absence of — dare I suggest it? — disagreement on hot topic?
Concerned-citizen columns matter. Why not go with some side-by-side pro-and-con back and forth. I’ll tell you one person who will give three cheers. It’s Eric Holder, who preached open discussion some time back, calling us a nation of cowards. (That hurt, Eric.)
But forget Eric. Think of the reader, rather stopped in his tracks by an arresting debate!
Oh, about my letter that didn’t make it. Later, OK?
Blithe Spirit 
Reblogged this on Oak Park Newspapers.
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