You can’t please all of the people all of the time.

In a nutshell, that is the very first fact of life one must embrace should one ever choose to work as the editor of a community newspaper. In this job, it is incredibly easy to send readers into apoplectic fits of rage without even trying.

Most recently, this was accomplished by our decision to run a press release which simply announced that Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury was coming to Wallowa County to offer a presentation about global warming to the Wallowa County Rotary Club, local schools and the public.

In our view, the item was worth publishing for three reasons. 1.) The state’s top leaders don’t travel to these parts often; 2.) there are many folks who’d be interested in hearing what Bradbury has to say about climate change and, in particular, how it might affect Oregon; and 3.) those who believe the concept of global warming is no more than low-grade hogwash would now have the opportunity to give the state’s second-highest elected official a piece of their minds, up-close and in-person.

But, to reiterate, you can’t please all of the people all of the time.

“YOU CALL YOURSELF A ‘FAIR AND BALANCED’ NEWSPAPER’?” raged one caller, in so many words. “IF YOU ARE SO #!@% ‘FAIR AND BALANCED,’ WHY WOULD YOU EVEN PRINT BILL BRADBURY’S NAME?” After ranting on for another three or four minutes, without once pausing for a reply to his questions, the caller abruptly terminated his monologue.

In all fairness, it’s pretty easy to understand how someone might have a hard time understanding what the phrase “fair and balanced” means when it comes to news reporting in the 21st Century.

Once upon a time, across the board in this business, the concept of fair and balanced reporting meant that every news story had to give equal weight to every person and every side of the issue involved. That, however, is no longer the case, thanks in large part, we’d guess, to TV’s Fox News Channel – which has actually trademarked the phrase “fair and balanced.”

Of course, how closely Fox adheres to the slogan’s promise depends entirely on the viewer’s own perspective. Not long ago, for example, Fox offered a news story about former comedian Al Franken, now a candidate for the 2008 United States Senate election in Minnesota as a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. Throughout the report, whenever the subject’s name was mentioned, he was referred to as “the vile Al Franken.” Meanwhile, a photograph of Franken – captioned “The vile Al Franken” – was superimposed on the top right corner of the screen, apparently for the benefit of the hearing impaired.

To those who are certain, beyond all doubt, that Al Franken is indeed “vile,” this segment probably seemed as “fair and balanced” as a news report could get. But in the old, pre-Fox days of journalism, the word “vile” would have been considered blatant editorializing and woefully unprovable judgment call with no place in a bona-fide, true-blue, “fair and balanced” news story.

Back then, you see, the idea was to offer only the facts – who, what, when, where, why and how – and not tell you what to think or who to hate.

But that was then and this is now.

In these topsy-turvy times, if a news outlet doesn’t refer to Al Gore as “the vile Al Gore,” or Dick Cheney as “the cretinous vice-president,” or Bill Bradbury as “the satanic incarnation of all that’s wrong with America,” you can bet the farm that some folks will start screaming about horribly unfair and unbalanced reporting.

Ah, well. You can’t please all of the people all of the time.

And maybe that’s not such a bad thing.