The West Coast Ravens lay down smoke in formation during their performance at the Wallowa County Fly-In in Joseph on July 9, 2022. 

Offering vital context to important news events is a crucial part of our job at our newspapers stretched across the high vistas of Eastern Oregon.

Context — a set of facts about some event that occurs — is critical so a reader can accurately and confidently navigate through a logical thought process and develop a conclusion.

Context isn’t an opinion. Opinion, once regulated to specific pages in a newspaper or safely ensconced with set aside time on the air, has all too often wormed its way into stories at newspapers during the past 25 years.

I, and by extension we, are very conscious of how opinion — and not facts — can seemingly unnoticed creep into a news story. That’s why we take a lot of time ensuring that doesn’t happen. Essentially, good news stories should be about the facts. When you finish reading one of our news stories, ideally, you should be able to put the newspaper down and not feel like an opinion either way was pushed on you. Our job is to deliver the facts and then allow you to make a decision. Our opinion page, which is clearly marked as a forum for opinions, is where we deliver our own views regarding a specific subject. Opinion isn’t news.

Along with the commitment to creating a value free platform for our readers, we also want to make sure we can outie the context of every story as much possible. Readers needed the facts of a story, but they also need to know how those facts fit into a broader narrative. For example, a major fine levied by federal or state authorities on a local company should be presented with the background of previous miscues by that firm but also what that particular company has done for the community over the past, say, 20 years.

Both the negative and the positive are important for context.

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If you missed this week’s Chieftain, reporter Jack Parry wrote about the Wallowa County Fly-In that brought people far and wide to the air show. Chief Joseph Days announced this year’s grand marshals, and Bill Bradshaw wrote about how the pandemic may be coming to a close, but area businesses are still trying to find enough workers during tourist season.

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As always, I want to take this opportunity to thank our subscribers for their support of the Wallowa County Chieftain. We can’t do this work without you.