Can we talk, Greenwood?
Adrea Miller, a 2000 graduate of Greenwood High School, appears to have touched a community nerve with a letter to the editor that appeared in Monday’s Commonwealth.
Miss Miller wrote that it has long been her observation, and that of many in the black community, that Pillow Academy receives better press in the Commonwealth than does Greenwood High.
“I have realized that ever since Tim Kalich ‘took over’ the Commonwealth, all the appealing things that happen at Pillow Academy stay on the front page. The appalling things are always found toward the classifieds. For Greenwood High School, it’s vice versa,” Miss Miller wrote.
Her letter prompted a reply from Carrollton resident and fellow Commonwealth reader Sandra Peacock, who took issue with Miss Miller’s observations.
“Since Tim Kalich ‘took over’ the Commonwealth,” Mrs Peacock wrote in Wednesday’s letters to the editor section, “the front page will have some type of report dealing with the black community four out of six days the paper is published.”
More postal salvos quickly followed, with other letter writers arguing whether the Commonwealth — and by extension, Tim Kalich — is or is not racist.
As the guy who sits in the glass-walled office with his name on the door, Kalich is no stranger to controversy. When irate readers call and demand to talk to the boss, Kalich is the guy the rest of us transfer them to. It’s why they pay him the big bucks.
Still, Kalich must have found himself wondering what he did to deserve all this.
For the record, Kalich is the Commonwealth’s editor and publisher. It would be news to the Emmerich family, which owns the paper, to find out he’s “taken over” the joint. They merely entrusted him to run things on a day-to-day basis.
And he does a good job of it. I say that not because he happens to be my boss, but because I believe it to be true.
In the four short months I’ve lived in Greenwood and worked at the Commonwealth, Tim has impressed me with his concern for Greenwood and with his passion for community journalism.
In her letter, Miss Miller states that the impetus for her writing was “something I saw in the newspaper Sunday.”
That “something” was a photo of Greenwood High School’s graduation that ran on Page Two. Miss Miller points out, correctly, that Pillow Academy’s graduation photo ran on Page One a week earlier.
“Why was Greenwood High School’s picture on the second page?” Miss Miller asks. “Why aren’t the bad things at Pillow broadcast like GHS? You know why? It’s because of favoritism, racism, diversity, injustice.”
Strong words. And, if true, a serious impugning of the accuracy, fairness and balance that is the cornerstone of any newspaper worth the paper it is printed on.
The truth, however, is a bit more mundane.
The picture of Greenwood High’s graduation was on Page Two because I put it there. The decision was mine, not Tim’s. But before anyone begins casting stones my way, allow the condemned man a few final words.
I come to the Commonwealth from a much larger newspaper, one which prides itself on presenting its readers with in-depth national and international coverage, as well as local news.
While my former paper did run graduation photos, it did not run photos of all area high schools, as does the Commonwealth. It ran a representative sample, usually one or two, based solely on the news judgment of its editors. This was done to enable the paper to devote the rest of its space to other stories.
Graduation photos occasionally ran on Page One in the years I worked there, but far more often, depending on other events transpiring around the world that day, ran inside. In the traditional view of what does and does not constitute news, it is difficult for a graduation photo to compete with death, destruction, wars and rumors of wars for space on Page One.
When I stated earlier that Tim has a passion for community journalism, that’s newspaper code talk for saying he adheres to the principle that local news takes priority over all other news.
When I made the decision to bump the Greenwood graduation photo inside, it had nothing to do with favoritism or racism, as Miss Miller concluded in her letter.
Rather, it had to do with the fact I was conditioned by 16 years of working at a paper that seldom ran graduation photos on Page One at all — and never, ever, ever ran them on Page One off and on for the entire month of May.
Aside from the “local news rules” rule, one of the reasons the Commonwealth runs graduation photos on Page One for all schools — or did till I came along — is because to do otherwise is to invite allegations of favoritism, racism, etc.
Tim knows this. And had he been made aware of my unintentional transgression, he would have overruled my decision to bump the Greenwood High picture inside.
But he hired me to make many of the editorial decisions that shape how the Commonwealth will look when readers open their Sunday papers.
I imagine he must have taken quite a few deep breaths when he opened his paper last Sunday along with other Commonwealth readers. His morning eggs must have tasted flat after that.
But there is a deeper implication in Miss Miller’s letter, one that, as a reporter, troubles me far more than the placement or misplacement of a single photo. And that is the perception, rightly or wrongly, that the Commonwealth is failing to meet the needs of a large segment of the community it serves.
I have never met Miss Miller, but she appears to be a thoughtful, articulate, passionate person. As a taxpayer, I am gratified to see that our school system can produce young men and women who have strong opinions about what is right and wrong and can express those opinions intelligently.
I have asked officials at Greenwood High School to have Miss Miller contact me. I hope she does. I hope we can sit down in the same room together and exercise our freedom of speech to reach a better understanding of each other’s position on the issues of race and fairness. I hope we can converse as reasonable people.
I believe the Commonwealth can serve as the medium for that conversation, to help the Greenwood community, my community, better come to grips with issues such as favoritism and racism.
Let the conversation begin.
