EDITOR’S NOTE: Blackout coverage

Township Council debate blacked out due to South Brunswick Post’s policy on election coverage.

By: Hank Kalet
   On Tuesday, voters in South Brunswick will be heading to the polls to determine who should serve on the Township Council next year.
   Two seats are up this year, including the mayoral post (essentially a glorified council chairman’s slot), and this paper has spent a lot of time and energy trying to make sure that local voters know where each of the candidates stands on the issues that readers have told us are important.
   We ran a series of five issue-specific stories that culminated last week. We also issued our endorsement last week, are running a rebuttal from the candidates not endorsed in this week’s edition and have opened our letters columns to anyone in the community interested in weighing in on the election.
   We think our approach was thorough, but understand that there will be some readers this week who are wondering why we did not run a story on Monday’s candidates night in this week’s paper.
   It was a difficult choice, but we have long-established campaign rules that limit what can be published in our last paper before the election:
   "General Packet policy calls for every effort to be made to avoid the initial raising of controversial or sensational issues in the final edition before the election," the policy states. "Therefore, The Post will engage in a campaign news blackout for the issue of Nov. 2. To prevent the introduction of new issues at the last minute, the only campaign-related stories that will be published in the issue of Nov. 2 will be those listing polling places and hours. This is done to allow candidates ample time to rebut any charges and offer their opinions on any issues raised during the campaign. Letters during the blackout week will be limited to direct endorsements or to responses to news coverage or the endorsement editorial."
   As the policy says, we do this to protect the candidates not only from last-minute charges but to prevent us from having the last word or creating the final impression of any of the candidates.
   We always reserve the right to violate our policy if special circumstances warrant, but that has never been an issue.
   This year, however, candidates night was scheduled during our blackout week, leaving us with a difficult choice. The event obviously is important, but we have decided to maintain our blackout.
   Breaking our rule for a candidates night would create a precedent that could present problems in the future.
   This year’s event, from what I’ve heard, was a pretty straightforward affair. But there remains the potential that candidates at future events might use their "air time" to drop last-minute bombs on their opponents in the form of unsubstantiated charges. That would leave us in the awkward position of having to either exclude the charges completely or report them in as balanced a matter as possible — something we do as a matter of course.
   The issue, for me, is that such a story would serve as the last word on the election, creating the final image, the final impression. Such a story could not be rebutted effectively once it ran and would put targeted candidates at what might be an unfair disadvantage.
   At the same time, we do not want to minimize the importance of the event. That’s why we have crafted what we think is a useful compromise. We have posted a story on candidates night on our Web site (www.southbrunswickpost.com). The Web site allows for instantaneous updates by us and has a comment function that will allow candidates and the public to weigh in.
The Editor’s Note column will run as often as necessary as a way to explain the workings of the South Brunswick Post to our readers. So, please, send me your questions about the paper, about the news business, about the decisions we’ve made and any suggestions you have. I’ll try and answer as many as I can in future Editor’s Notes. Call me at (732) 329-9214, write me at P.O. Box 309, Dayton, N.J. 08810 or e-mail me here.