The Printer’s Devil

I once covered a tense zoning battle between a quarrying company that wanted to start a new quarry near several rural residential subdivisions and its future neighbors.

During testimony during one testy public hearing, one of the owners of the quarry company started denouncing me.

He said I had slanted my stories, referring to the dust from quarries as being carcinogenic.

I was startled. Although I never make people happy with my stories, given what a loaded word it is, I would never use “carcinogenic” in a news story unless I was quoting someone official and I sure didn’t in this case.

I knew someone who worked for the company and asked him.

It turned out that the owner was furious about a letter to the editor from one of the neighbors opposed to the proposed quarry.

But because the owner read it in the paper, and I was writing the stories about the quarry in the paper, in his mind, I and the newspaper said it.

You’d be surprised how many people think that letter to the editor is the same as the newspaper’s editorial or news stories.

Don’t be confused when you are guilty of some reader’s letter. Be prepared to explain yourself.