Criticize away, just keep it honest, please

Newspapers are easy targets. Sometimes conveniently so.

Our work is on public display three times a week in print, and 24/7 at frontiersman.com. As such, we are subject to more scrutiny than most professions.

From that scrutiny often flows criticism. When the criticism is valid, we are not sheepish about admitting it and running a correction or clarification.

We understand this goes with the turf, so we don’t busy ourselves with responding to every critic.

But sometimes such criticism crosses a line, and needs to be addressed head on. This is particularly true when we are accused, without proof or example, of ignoring or twisting the truth.

A Spectrum piece on this page (“Frontiersman editorial is out of line”) from Mat-Su Borough Mayor Larry DeVilbiss crosses that line. The mayor not only accuses us of playing fast and loose with the truth in a Jan. 10 editorial (“Mayor’s actions are out of line”) that was critical of him, he also ascribes less-than-pristine motives to our writing of that editorial.

Untruthfulness and agenda are fundamentally antithetical to good journalism. So, these are serious allegations, and we do not take them lightly.

We understand that no one enjoys being criticized. And we are not naïve enough to assume a pointed editorial will not spur an equally pointed response.

But we also are well-acquainted with how convenient it is to level those charges as a knee-jerk response to criticism. This is why we refuse to let the mayor’s accusations go unanswered.

Our editorial had a clear, single focus — that two letters penned by DeVilbiss to state officials, signed in his capacity as mayor and written on borough letterhead, and which appear to convey an official borough position — overstep his authority.

But the mayor chose to muddy that clarity by splitting irrelevant semantic hairs and taking us to task for things that have nothing to do with the editorial’s focus.

As an example, he admits to supporting the goals of House Bill 77. He even called them “laudable.” Yet somehow he feels justified in denying he expressed support for the bill.

This kind of semantic nonsense aside, the editorial is in no way about HB 77 and whether the mayor supports it. To the contrary, the editorial clearly states, “We do not quibble with his position on HB 77. The mayor, like everyone, is entitled to his opinion.”

What he is not entitled to do, the editorial goes on to state, is offer his opinion as the official position of the borough and its residents.

Here in the Mat-Su, we have what is known as a “weak mayor” form of government. This means the day-to-day business of running the borough falls to the borough manager, at the direction of the borough assembly.

The role of the mayor is largely ceremonial. Pointing out this fact does not mean, as the mayor would have us believe, that we think of him as “an inert ornament.”

In his Spectrum, the mayor goes to great lengths to explain what Borough Code allows him to do. He is right about all of it. We did not deny it in the editorial, and we do not deny it now.

His duties — presiding over meetings, lobbying for us in Juneau, nominating people to boards and commissions, etc., are integral to a prosperous borough. We respect, and even appreciate, the vigor with which he carries out those duties.

But our editorial, again, was not about these things. To the contrary, it was about one single thing that borough code specifically does not allow him to do — take an official position for all of us about matters that the assembly chose not to take a position on.

It really is that simple.

Mark Kelsey has been Frontiersman publisher since December 2011. He served as managing editor from 2005-07, and as sports editor from 1995-97.

Comment online below, or send your letter to news@frontiersman.com.

• “Mayor’s actions are out of line” (Frontiersman editorial, Jan. 10), http://tinyurl.com/nxp9hfj

• Assembly member chastises borough mayor for “unauthorized letter” (Frontiersman, July 18, 2013), http://tinyurl.com/lojj2qt

• Judge cites DeVilbiss letter as show of support for redistricting (Frontiersman, Nov. 24, 2013), http://tinyurl.com/kv8dv23.