Community Opinion

When BG Independent News launched the website bgindependentmedia.org, we questioned whether we wanted to get into running letters to the editor. From our long experience with newspapers, we both had very mixed feelings about those. Yes, having an open forum for readers to express their opinions is an important service to offer. But since that could mean publishing not infrequently things we knew were untrue, as well as expressions of hate speech, it left us uncomfortable. And while a newspaper has a corporate identity, BG Independent is far more identified with its principals, Jan McLaughlin and David Dupont. 

Just as we hold ourselves to certain standards, we’d like our letter writers to as well. First, this is not the place to express hatred of classes of people due to sexual orientation or race or religion. Nor are we interested in quick “elect Q for office B” statements with no support. If you want to make a claim for or against someone, offer evidence. 

To submit a letter or opinion piece, send it in the form of a text document or within the body of the email itself (no PDFs or photo files) to letters@bgindependentmedia.org. Though only your full name and city will be published, please include a phone number and street address for our reference. We will not post anything from anonymous sources.