Father’s policy statement still serves newspaper well

The start of this new year marks the beginning of my 26th year as editor of The Canadian Record. It also...not coincidentally...marks the 26th anniversary of my father’s death. 
I remember the long, sad drive back from the Oklahoma City hospital where he had been taken by ambulance the day before, and where he died the next morning during a surgeon’s futile Hail Mary attempt to save his worn-out heart. 
I remember driving into town that evening, submerged in shock and grief, and heading straight to the office. I stood in the dark at my father’s desk, touching the well-worn keys of his Underwood typewriter...in search of his fingerprints, I suppose...and wondered what came next.
The next morning, the staff arrived as usual. We talked a few minutes about Ben R. Ezzell and the hole his death would leave in the world. The phone started ringing with calls from friends and readers, and from a few sworn enemies whose sudden grief must have surprised even them. 
Just like that, we were all wrenched back to the business of getting out another damn newspaper.
This has become my New Year’s meditation. I stop to think about the quarter-century that has passed, with only a blurred memory of that first year...or two...or perhaps it was three...before I got some sleep and found my bearings.
My first two assignments, as I sat down at my father’s desk that first day, were to help write his obituary and to prepare the Statement of Policy that we publish in the first edition of each new year. I silently cursed my father for believing himself immortal, and worried about my lack of preparation for this job. And I typed...just as I have again typed...that concise statement.
Letter by letter, 316 words in all...and there it was: everything I needed to know.

We believe in the freedom of the press. We are grateful for it. We will defend it to the limit of our ability.
We believe, too, that in return for that freedom, we owe an obligation of service to our community. We believe that it is our duty to provide you with complete and unbiased reporting of the news in our community.
We will always strive for accuracy...and, being human, we will not always achieve it. But we pledge to you that we will never knowingly mislead you, and we will never refuse to make correction if any error of fact is called to our attention.
We will do our best to keep you informed regarding the public affairs of our community because we believe that an informed public is our best guarantee of freedom. We will always strive to base our reporting of the news on fact and to confine our opinions and comments on it to the editorial columns. We will continue to present our own views on public questions, editorially, as clearly and concisely as possible, because we believe you have a right to know where your newspaper stands on any public question.
At the same time, we will not deny you, as individuals, the right to public expression of your own views, whether your ideas agree with ours or not. As always, the columns of The Record will be open to you for publication, over your own signature, of your own views on questions of public interest...subject only to the restrictions of libel laws and the standards of common decency.
But we will neither publish nor acknowledge unsigned and anonymous contributions, regardless of their content.
The Record is a private company, operated for private profit. But it is a public news medium and, as such, we hope that it merits and will continue to merit your confidence and your trust.

Every year I review the statement my father wrote, and first published, in the summer of 1949 when he assumed the duties of editor. Just as he did, I wonder whether the passage of time and the dramatic fluxes our industry has experienced might warrant revision.
How remarkable that in those nearly seven intervening decades, it has remained unchanged.
My dad left me a perfect blueprint for what is at the very core of the newspaper business. It was the best possible preparation for doing this job, and I am grateful for it.
If I were to offer one piece of advice to anyone starting out in community journalism, it would be to define the principles that will guide your work, and the decisions you make, and to share them each year with your readers. They need to know them...to be reminded of them. And so, too, will the next person who sits down at your desk.

NOTE: My dad was fond of ellipses, and was never sparing in their use. I never asked him why, but my theory is that he loved the sound they made when he pounded them out on the typewriter. I’ve used them here...abundantly...in his memory.