Allowing for more open discussion

The editor of this paper felt like she heard a collective gasp last week as people read a letter to the editor on this page of the January 14 edition titled “Take down the Trump flags.”

There has been a long standing letter to the editor policy at the Independent Record that allowed for strong censorship of the type of letters that were accepted for print on this page.

Upon review of that policy at the beginning of 2021, a decision was made by the editor to allow for more open discussion on a larger variety of topics.

Calling out elected officials, questioning their actions and discussing their actions has long been allowed on the opinion pages of other newspapers throughout the country and state. We are proud to be joining that group.

On this page there are four letters to the editor. Some of these letters would not have been printed, at least in their entirety, under the old letter to the editor policy. The letter referred to earlier, that printed last week, would not have been printed either.

What are we afraid of? This is an opinion page.

Everyone has and is entitled to an opinion.

The new policy may not be a complete “Anything goes” policy but it will allow for more open discussion on topics that are very important to us.

It is our effort to relax censorship in a world were the outcry over censorship can been seen and heard all around us.

-Lara Love, editor