How to be the tallest tree in the forest
I have spent the last week just covered up in politics.
Last Thursday, I spent the evening with the county’s Republican Party at their monthly meeting.
I got to spend some quality time with S.C. Treasurer Converse Chellis and the three Republican candidates running for the Sixth District House of Representatives. Every candidate there, and a few of their proxies stood to speak and thanks to Party Chairman Moye Graham, were brief and to the point.
I was, however, taken aback when I asked one candidate what was his mission in running for office. Answer: to defeat Candidate X. Not exactly my idea of a great mission statement, but whatever.
On Sunday afternoon, I got to visit with the Democrats as they held their stump meeting in the courtyard of the Land, Parker and Welch law offices.
There were candidates running for statewide office whose platform was single issued and that disturbed me too.
(Apparently, I am becoming an equal opportunity cynic.)
I’m sure you have heard a lot of the bantering back and forth between some of the candidates and I don’t know about you, but I am a bit weary of it. But I don’t get to control that, so my decision is to try and winnow out the truth and choose the candidate who seems to have the soundest rationale for wanting to hold an office. That truth will come from what I see with my own eyes and hear with my own ears. There is no such thing as bias-less reporting. That would be a cool machine to invent, if you could keep the human element out of it.
However, in one of the many conversations I have had with the various candidates, one said this to me: “You don’t get to be the tallest tree in the forest by cutting down all the others.”
That has been on my mind for several weeks now and it all came together for me as I work to sort out working for a new paper, competing in a tough market and just why we do what we do the way we do it.
Being the “new” paper in town is a lot like being a political candidate, I think.
All of us, friend or foe, have the same basic mission … be the best.
It’s the “how” we do it that makes a difference, at least to me.
There is an old saying in the paper business that “if it bleeds, it leads,” meaning that the juiciest, bloodiest, grimiest story gets the top spot in the paper.
At the Clarendon Citizen, we have decided to take a different position.
Personally, I sort of like, “if it’s worth celebrating, it’s worth being in the paper.”
Do we sometimes have to cover the hard news about crime, municipal budgets, and woes in our schools? Of course we do … it is part of the historical record of our county.
I think there is a common belief that half-truths, juicy gossip and innuendo sell newspapers. Maybe. But we aren’t selling the Citizen.
While we may occasionally get a thrill from the scintillating tales of who is doing what with whom, I believe it is not something that we want in our newspapers.
However, I also believe that we are a community of people who really want only the best for each other. We give food so that others may eat. We take clothes to mission houses so that those without can have. We give blood, time, money, prayers, our possessions and anything we can to support each other.
Not each of us is so giving, but most of us are and in the pages of the Clarendon Citizen we can salute those who are of that ilk. I believe that those stories lift each of us up a little higher.
The Clarendon Citizen will not make itself the tallest tree by cutting down the other trees … we don’t want to compete that way.
But compete we will and despite any hardship that comes our way, we will continue to try and lift our entire community story by story.
You hold in your hands the tenth edition of the Clarendon Citizen and it has been a wild, wild ride. But the road is starting to get a little less bumpy with fewer hairpin turns. We are simply loving what we are doing and we hope you like it too.
The depth of our appreciation for your support is immeasurable. Holding this paper in your hands (or even reading it online) is what will sustain us through the toughest of days because we do it for you.
Keep reading … there’s some really good stuff on the next few pages!
