Why is it that governmental bodies expect the people to “trust” them?

Wouldn’t it be better  — and of course it would — if they simply acted trustworthy instead?

Rather than running behind closed doors to discuss public business and then arguing how unfair it is that someone thinks they are doing something wrong, why don’t public officials  just meet out in the open in the first place? Then there can be no reason for anyone to speculate that something inappropriate occurred.

This debate came to the surface again this week at the state Supreme Court in the WTE’s lawsuit against the Cheyenne Building Department’s Board of Appeals. As attorney Kate Fox made her arguments for the city — which says the board did not hold an illegal secret meeting in July of 2008 — she made the claim that no improper actions (such as taking a vote) occurred behind closed doors.

Justice Marilyn Kite asked, “How do we know there was no action taken in private?”

To which Ms. Fox responded, “There is no reason to suspect the board conducted a nefarious scheme in private.”

In other words: “Trust us. We would never do anything that is not in the public’s interest.”

Well, we beg to differ. There is every reason to think that the board might have acted inappropriately. Anyone who has watched government for even a moment in recent years knows that it generally acts in its own interests first. And while those interests, for the most part, tend to overlap those of the public, it is not always so. Indeed governments at all levels, from here in Cheyenne to Washington, D.C., regularly are caught acting in ways that are contrary to what the public wants and expects.

Some will call that cynical, and that’s OK with us. Our job — assigned by the First Amendment — is to keep an eye on government, and you can’t do that if your operating principle is that “trust me” is OK.

Getting back to the Board of Appeals, which turned down a permit to demolish homes just south of the Cheyenne hospital: That body itself gave every indication that it acted illegally when it went behind closed doors.  After it came out, one of its members, attorney Robert Moxley, prepared findings of fact in support of rejecting the permit, which the board eventually did after perfunctory debate in open session at a later meeting.

Mr. Moxley did not, however,  prepare a document in favor of allowing the permit. How did he know which one to prepare unless the members had made a decision behind closed doors? Perhaps they did not take a vote, but they clearly reached consensus on a direction for action and then rubber-stamped it in public. So much for “trust me.”

How much better would it have been if the board had acted in trustworthy fashion? If members had met in public and had a frank discussion and then voted to deny the permits, no one ever would have questioned its actions. And then Ms. Fox would not have had to make flimsy arguments at the Supreme Court about “trust.”

Now, some will argue that the board could not have had frank discussions had it been forced to talk about the permits in an open meeting. In fact, Ms. Fox said just that at the high court.  But what possibly could have been said in secret that would have so shocked the public — or embarrassed the board members — that the doors had to be slammed in the public’s face? No one ever will know, of course. And even if nothing was said like that, how can government expect that this approach builds “trust?” It doesn’t.

If government ever is going to gain the trust of the public, it is going to have to act in trustworthy fashion. That includes not ducking behind closed doors every time there is a controversial issue.

There are only two possible reasons for why the Board of Appeals met behind closed doors: Either it had something to hide, or it was arrogant, so arrogant that it felt it was going to do what it wanted to do in spite of a state law that required open meetings. Either answer, unfortunately, is not about to build trust in the public for its government.

It has become trendy to dance on the grave of the newspaper industry. Conservatives to liberals, including documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, have recently proclaimed the death of newspapers, many with great glee.

Listen to Daniel Lyons, who is the technology writer for Newsweek. He writes a blog and column called Techtonic Shifts:

“Instead of giving newspapers bailouts, we should be hastening their demise. The weak papers need to die. The strong newspapers need to go into bankruptcy and restructure their businesses with smaller staffs and lower cost structures. Yes, it will be painful. But journalists will find jobs — and they’ll be working in a better, faster medium.”

Well, they all had better be careful what they wish for. Yes, the recession has impacted the way many papers are doing business. And, yes, many of the nation’s larger papers are taking it on the chin (though many studies indicate that smaller papers, like your WTE, are doing just fine, thank you) as their readers turn to the Internet for news. But is the possible loss of newspapers really something to celebrate?

After all, if newspapers go away, who is going to do the job of keeping an eye on government? Certainly, talk radio, niche publications and bloggers can handle some of the duties. But when was the last time that you heard them do a story about the Cheyenne City Council? Consider some of the investigative stories that have been done recently at newpapers around the nation. This list comes from a newsletter  from the Associated Press Managing Editors group:

– Thousands of people with criminal pasts that include violent felonies and hurting children have been hired to work in Florida’s child-care centers over the past two decades. (Sun Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.)

– Since 2005 in Colorado, nearly a third of those convicted in deadly drinking and driving crashes were incarcerated for two years or less — and 13 of them were not imprisoned at all. (Denver Post)

– While more than 100 registered sex offenders live in Ohio nursing homes, their convictions for rape, gross sexual imposition and sexual battery generally were kept secret from other residents and their families. (Columbus Dispatch)

– Crime in California’s state parks has more than doubled over the past decade, outpacing growth in the statewide crime rate and in park use. (The Sacramento Bee)

– School crime across Tucson, Ariz., school districts showed hundreds of incidents of assault, sexual harassment, racial comments and profanity. While only a few of the incidents involved violent crimes, the majority add up to a systematic lack of respect for other students and teachers. (Arizona Daily Star)

There are many more of these in the newsletter and, of course, it contains only a small portion of the hard work that newspaper staffs are doing as they seek to perform their duties as watchdogs. But if Mr. Lyons gets his wish and newspapers either go away or are forced to operate with significantly smaller staffs, one has to wonder who will be reporting stories like these.

Every reporter lost in every newsroom, regardless of the size of the newspaper, means there are fewer people who have the time to undertake investigations. And such journalism is time-consuming, eating up reporter time that might be used to cover breaking news or to do some “smaller” story that directly affects readers, like how to deal with the swine flu. And investigations can be risky. Much time and energy can be invested in a story that ends up being a dry hole. And all of those hours could have been used for something else, so editors are even more cautious the next time an investigation comes their way.

That certainly is how it is here at your WTE as daily reporting demands often force us to delay bigger enterprise projects or investigations that we would like to do. It even bleeds over into the reporting of the operations of government as we work with fewer staff members to cover ever-growing local and state governments. Yet it is not as if someone else is going to step up and take our place if we go away: Local radio and TV face even greater constraints.

One can almost hear the nation’s politicians cheering when they read pieces like those from Mr. Lyons. They certainly understand that a one-eyed or even sleeping watchdog is less a threat to them as they seek to bend the system to their own ends. You may trust your politicians or you may not. But even Ronald Reagan knew the importance of keeping on eye on things when he said, “Trust, but verify.”

There doesn’t appear to be an easy answer to this problem as the newspaper industry continues to undergo an restructuring. For example, we do not support a government bailout of newspapers, and proposed funding through foundations could remove our ability to comment via our editorial pages.

But simply providing a sloppy goodbye kiss a la Daniel Lyons of Newsweek is not the answer. Clearly, he has lost contact with the Founders’ motivations for the First Amendment, which was to establish a watchdog through newpapers (the only medium they had at the time).  Celebrating the loss of that is a serious mistake.

There was a time when reviews were part of nearly every newspaper’s staples. Remember the old movies in which the budding actress awaits the arrival of the paper hot off the press so she can read the reviews?

That has faded over time as editors came to realize that there was little benefit to telling readers what had happened after the event. What good was it to report that there had been a great show when they no longer could attend it?
So in recent years papers have focused their efforts on letting readers know what was coming up in advance of the events. One result of that in Cheyenne has been the development of our unique ToDo section, which provides a daily glimpse at the wide range of activities available both in Laramie County and along the Front Range.

But we recently decided to bring back some reviews – of events that are recurring in nature. For example, the review this past week of “Annie,” which is being put on by the Cheyenne Little Theatre Players. Since the musical will run over multiple weeks, the review by Kevin Wingert, our assistant managing editor in charge of features, serves as an advance story on the show as well.

Well, it appears that not everyone likes this idea. Indeed, one reader wrote to tell Mr. Wingert that such local reviews are “necessarily pretentious” and that they “serve to discourage the performers and discourage the community from supporting the arts.” As for the specific review on “Annie,” he called it “condescending,” and added that it rested “firmly in mediocrity.”

But we think these reviews serve other functions. Those who read the “Annie” review will recall that it also spent a good portion of its space praising certain players, even those whose performances might have needed a little polishing. And while it was not a glowing review, it did recommend the show to readers, saying, “Despite these knocks, the evening proved delightful on the whole … (and) one is left wondering what tomorrow will bring for the CLTP.”
The key to successful reviews of local performances is to not apply standards that the performers are unable to reach. For example, it would be unfair – and truly discouraging – for the Little Theatre Players to be compared to a professional company. But our review of “Annie” did not do that.

Besides, the goal of a review is not to give the performers glowing words to put into their scrapbooks or to make moms and dads happy. Rather, it is to help readers – who have limited amounts of time and money – to decide whether to attend a show and to help them better understand what they are seeing after they have invested their dollars.
Also, reviews provide “buzz,” spurring community discussion about the show and about culture in the community. You do not have to agree with a review to get something out of it, and indeed we invite your response if you disagree with our opinions, either in a letter to the editor or in the comments area that follows the review on our Web site (www.WyomingNews.com). If Mr. Wingert’s review gets people talking about “Annie” at work or wherever they gather, then we will have done our job.

We do not intend to review every arts and entertainment event in Cheyenne, and we generally will stay away from those that require specific expertise, since the end product in this paper would be superficial at best. But we think reviews have a role in our coverage, and we hope our readers agree.

So while we appreciate the comments from our less-than-happy reader, we intend to press forward with our efforts to review local performances. We see it as one more way to help busy readers negotiate the world around them while providing them with a little entertainment as well.

For readers of the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, it might seem like an obscure case with little importance to their lives. But it’s not.

I’m referring to a recent filing in federal court by the Wyoming Coalition for Open Government. The group is asking that the court make available as much information as possible in the case of three teenage girls who were killed on the Wind River Reservation in central Wyoming in June of 2008. While the coalition made it clear that it is not interested in the names of any juveniles who might have been arrested and whose cases may be wending their way through the criminal justice, it did say that information about the cause of the girls’ deaths, as well as general information about the case, should be made available to the public. (For the sake of disclosure, the WTE’s executive editor, D. Reed Eckhardt, is president of the coalition.)

So what does any of that have to do with our readers? Well, it’s mainly about principles, but important principles.

First of all, we don’t hold secret trials in America. There are many reasons why our courtrooms are open, but one of the main ones is that this is not a nation where people are whisked off the streets and dragged before judges who determine cases behind closed doors. Thus, if there are juveniles being tried in federal court here, the people who own those courts have every right to know that, as do the families of the three women.

Federal officials argue that they can release no information on cases involving juveniles for fear of identifying them. But appeals courts in other locations have ruled that the district courts should at least docket the cases and provide bare-bones information about them: the United States vs. three juveniles, for example. Additionally, if those cases have been adjudicated, then the community at large, as well as the families of the dead, should know the results. Again, the names should be kept secret, but information that does not reveal their identities should come out.

Besides, Wyoming’s open-records law explicitly states that autopsy reports are public documents. Yet the coroner in Fremont County refuses to release the reports in this case, saying he is under order from the feds not to do so.  Do federal officials have the right to override state law? That may have to be answered at a later date, but as soon as this case is resolved, the autopsies of the three women should be released.

Some say it is none of the media’s business to report on what is in an autopsy report. Again, we can debate that, and we can think of many occasions where it might not be appropriate. But certainly the families of the three girls, as well as the wider Wind River Reservation community, have a right to know what is in the reports, and they cannot as long as this case is under federal wraps.

Consider also that it is possible your own families or friends could be caught up in something like this. Certainly the intersection with the federal courts for juvenile cases is rare — the Wind River case is there because it happened on the reservation — but it is not impossible.

So while this situation might seem obscure, it has real meaning for those who believe government, in this case the courts, should be as open as possible.  And it is just the kind of case for which the Wyoming Coalition for Open Government was formed. It is a broader-based group than, say, the Wyoming Press Association, so it speaks with a different authority than does the newspaper-only group. Our hope is that the coalition will play an ever greater role in open government matters in this state as it gets its feet firmer on the ground.

If you or your organization are interested in taking part in the Wyoming Coalition for Open Government, you can contact Jim Angell at the press association at 307-630-8942 or at wyopress@wyopress.org.

Different stories are important to different people. The soccer mom wants her kid’s score — and a write-up — about the match. The local theatrical group expects an advance on its latest play, as well as a review afterward. Elected officials demand to see their latest press release carried – without editing.

So it goes in the world of a newspaper editor. The goal is to balance the competing wants of readers as we comb through the stories provided by our writers every day, as well as what is on the wire. Make the wrong choice, and someone is going to get mad — or accuse you of  bias. Make the right choice, and readers nod their heads and go about their business.

So it was  in the middle of this past week with the story about ACORN, the national community organizing group with ties to President Barack Obama that has found itself at the center of media attention because of some questionable dealings. Telephones and e-mail erupted in our newsroom as readers demanded to know why their WTE was not covering the story. The underlying assertion was that this newspaper was hiding the story from the public as part of a national media conspiracy to protect Mr. Obama.

Well, as it turns out, many of those calls came at the behest of Glenn Beck, who is the flavor of the day in the conservative talk media world. As we later learned, Mr. Beck had told his audience to call their local newspapers and demand that the ACORN story, which he was beating the drums about, appear there as well.

Eventually, as the story developed and grew from a local brouhaha about videotapes of ACORN volunteers suggesting some questionable actions into efforts in Congress to block funding for the group, the story did find its way into the pages of the WTE.

That is how the process works: The space in our newspaper is limited, and our priorities first are local — local news, local sports, local entertainment, local outdoors, local features — then the state of Wyoming, then the region and finally national and international (though sometimes a major story can vault its way to the front of the line ). It has to be that way. What the WTE provides that few others do is local and state news. There are many other sources for stories breaking on the national and international scene, but no one covers Cheyenne and Laramie County like the WTE.

Because of that, FOX News, CNN,  MSNBC or no one else drives the WTE’s story selection. It is interesting, even exciting, that people like Mr. Beck or Lou Dobbs or Rush Limbaugh are working stories and focusing on issues that are important to a segment of our readers. And occasionally they do break an item that is of wider interest, such as the uproar over ACORN or the resignation of former Obama adviser Van Jones. But that it what they do; it is not what we do. Rather, we have to balance a wide range of competing interests and demands, and each day our job is to sort them out while trying to meet the needs of some 50,000 readers.

This is one of the reasons that we tell readers to never rely on a single source of news and information, be it the WTE or FOX. Each has its own news priorities, and each has limited space (or in the case of TV, time). Not everything is going to make it into an edition of the newspaper or into a 30- or 60-minute news show, so editors have to make decisions each and every day about which stories to keep and which to pass on. And, yes, sometimes personal and political biases slip into the process. But that happens in all media, not just the ones that you disagree with.

But we cannot — will not — allow any other news organization, or even local groups or parents, to make our editing choices. We appreciate readers’ enthusiasms for various stories, and we will always take what they have to say into account, even as we apply what we think we know about our readers’ needs and wants. On the other hand, there are other readers demanding coverage of different, even opposing, things. It’s part of the great balancing act known as editing. It might seem easy from the outside, but we can assure you that it is not.

As defenders of the First Amendment — and of the concept that Americans can best find their way to solutions via public debate — it was disappointing this week to see some local schools hit the “off” switch on President Barack Obama’s speech to America’s students.

Here in Laramie County School District 1, schools were given the option for how to deal with the speech, which became controversial at the behest of some parents who felt the president was stepping outside of his proper bounds. Some moms and dads even said the president was trying to brainwash their kids with socialist rhetoric, which seemed a bit extreme, but they certainly were entitled to their opinions.

In response, most local schools chose to allow parents to opt their kids out of the speech, and while LCSD1 officials do not have any official numbers, it appears some parents did just that. That option made some sense: In the end, it is the job of the parents, not the schools, to raise their children, and given the tenor of the debate about this particular speech, and the fact that it was not part of the “official” curriculum, they rightly were given the option to have their kids sit it out.

But more troublesome were those schools — again the number is unclear — that chose to simply not show the speech at all. One student was told by her teachers that the address was not made available because administrators worried that it would be “too controversial.” So rather than deal with the controversy head on, they chose to duck it.

One has to wonder what kind of lesson that taught to those schools’ students. Everyone knew what the president was going to say — his remarks were released well in advance — and it is hard to see how Mr. Obama’s efforts to keep kids in school and have them work hard can be seen as “controversial” in any form or fashion. So what this “controversy” really was about was how various factions of the public were approaching the speech, including many vociferous opponents of the president, and how they might react if it was shown in class.

Apparently the message is: If it’s a controversial issue, the best choice is to simply avoid it. If this is the way that local schools are headed, then all parents — even those who took their kids out of class on Tuesday — should be concerned. Because if the schools are going to avoid every controversial idea, then they are going to produce students whose heads are filled with pablum and mush. So much for the alleged local push for critical thinking.

How much better would it have been to have used the controversy surrounding the president’s speech as a teaching moment? No, not the kind of teaching moment that Mr. Obama had sought in materials distributed in advance of the speech. That was, at best, a stupid idea; at worse, an effort to turn students’ allegiance toward the president. But how about discussing the president’s speech? Did he make some good points? Why was it even necessary for him to make the address? Who disagrees with what he says, and why?

But even more importantly, the speech could have served as a launching point for a discussion about importance of free speech and public debate in America. Indeed, the controversy that whirled around the Obama talk was a perfect example of what the Founding Fathers intended: that Americans would be able to express their views in a public forum and somehow together reach consensus. Students would not have had to have taken sides on the debate over the speech, but the lesson could have gone much deeper, to the very underpinnings of our nation.

I expect more from my schools than them simply stopping up their ears, closing their eyes and covering their mouths in the midst of controversy. That is not education. The schools are supposed to teach young people to think for themselves and to respect the thoughts of others. Those school administrators who chose the easy path sent out the wrong message. And their superiors should tell them so — in no uncertain terms.

A comment below from a reader who calls himself ShyWyo has had me thinking all week. He wrote in response to last week’s blog entry, “Where are the good heart warming stories that pull people together and make people smile?”

In some ways, the comment came at an ironic time. Last Sunday, we published a wonderful story and photo page on Hunter Jones, a sophomore at Cheyenne’s Central High who has battled cerebral palsy all of his life and yet has built a niche for himself as a top student and a big fan of the Indians football team, where his brother Hayden is a star player.

That story provoked a number of comments from readers, such as this: “What a wonderful story. Finally WTE wrote something worthwhile, interesting and inspirational …” On the other hand, one reader was less than pleased: “… I found this story to be lame and uninteresting … go out and find your readers a real news story.”

So it goes. Readers regularly complain that there is not enough good news in their newspaper. Yet it is not hard to pick up just about any day’s edition and find something that is not all death and destruction. Indeed, we have made a real effort in recent years to tell good news stories about people — that is what the “Plains People” (Sundays) and “Where Are They Now” (Mondays) features are all about — as well as to relate info on new businesses, community successes, etc. Regularly, readers can find stories about good things happening in their schools — every survey we have done shows that they want more of this — and there are features about local residents’ accomplishments in Sports, in the Sunday Journey section, in ToDo and sprinkled throughout the rest of the paper.

My theory on some of this is that good news stories just don’t seem to stick with readers like ”bad news” stories do. Good news might make us smile or even inspire us — as the Hunter Jones story clearly did for many readers. But it is the shocking that seems to make the longest-lasting impression: a murder, the trial of a sicko like Ricky Lee Dougherty, even the loss of a local icon like the Hitching Post Inn. Telling these stories are part of our job as well, and while we might not relish doing them, our goal is to do them right. That they tend to stick with readers much longer than those good news pieces is just part of the journalistic game.

Too, one could argue about whether a story is truly good or bad news. Take, for example, the slaying of Matthew Shepherd a decade ago. Yes, it could be seen as bad news, reflecting poorly on the state and shocking readers with its viciousness.  On the other hand, Shepherd’s killers were brought to justice, and the death ignited a healthy debate about how open the people of Wyoming truly are to those who are not like themselves. So it could be viewed as a good news story, as well. Perspective definitely does play a role.

Finally, it must be said that readers are attracted to bad news stories. If today’s front page were to feature two pieces  – one that said all of America’s airliners landed safely on Friday and one that told of the crash of an airliner in Europe that killed 250 people – you tell me which story would attract the most attention. It simply is a fact that rubber-neckers do slow down on the interstate when an accident is on the other side of the road. That’s human nature, and it is that same human nature that causes us to print — and you to read — many bad news stories.

And then, of course, there are those readers who don’t want good news, like the guy whose comment is included above. They want hard news; no “fluff” please.

All of this is what makes newspapering interesting: seeking a balance of stories, trying to keep readers happy, answering concerns from people who consider the WTE to be “their paper.” Ultimately, our goal is to tell good stories, whether they are considered to be good — or bad — news. That is our job,  and we try to do it a little better every day.

The issue of who gets to use the reader comments section of the WTE Web site (www.wyomingnews.com) – and how — reared its head again this week in the wake of our news story on the autopsy report of the father and son who were killed by a local woman. It is important to review for you, our readers, what is allowable there.

First, let me say that no reader has a right to post whatever he or she wants to post on the WTE blogs. Some have claimed this week that our refusal to post their comments is censorship. It is not. The First Amendment allows each of us free speech rights; it does not require every media outlet to publish what you have to say. The bottom line is that the WTE owns its printing press, and it has every right to decide what appears in print or, in this case, on its Web site. Besides, the First Amendment is about government censoring speech, not private industry.

That said, we do everything we can to allow readers to say what they want in response to our news stories. We think the range is pretty wide, so wide, in fact, that other readers often complain to us about what is posted there. But we think our readers have things that they want to say, and we try to allow them the chance to say it, even if it is offensive. For us, even offensive speech deserves to be expressed — within the bounds of good taste.

Of course, that is the rub. What is “good taste?” Should we allow readers to proclaim that those who are arrested of a heinous crime should be hung in public — even before they are found guilty? Should all statements about the woman who killed her family be allowed? What about those who would use offensive terms for black Americans or Hispanics? To be honest, some of the decisions that we make are by “gut:” how we feel about the comment’s importance to public debate, whether it is so offensive that it gets in the way of what the blogger is trying to say, whether it is responding to a similarly offensive post.

For those who don’t know, every post is approved in advance of its appearing on the Web site, usually by the executive or managing editors. We reject, on average, about 10 percent of what is submitted, and we edit another 10 percent or so, eliminating profanity or trying to rephrase some of the comment so that it is acceptable. We try to adhere to the same rules that apply to letters to the editor: The comments must not be libelous, they must not contain profanity and they must be not be so far over the edge that they are tasteless. We try to get as many comments as possible on the site; we believe this is the readers’ place to have their say about whatever is important to them.

As an earlier post (”Change in blog policy”) mentioned, one exception to this rule is that the comments are not allowed to attack individual businesses, unless those businesses have inserted themselves into the public debate. But even then the comments must be about the issue that the business is involved with; the comments cannot be about other issues related to the business. (Another difference is that we allow the comments to be anonymous. For more on that, see the “Web comments: Community dialogue” post below.)

Our goals in providing a place for reader comments are several: to offer a chance for members of this community to express themselves; to further debate on issues of importance; to entertain; to increase interaction between the WTE and its readers.  And, for the most part, there are few problems. As with anything else, however, there are limits, and several of our readers ran into those this week when their posts about the autopsy results were rejected. We do want you to use your reader comments section on the WTE Web site. But we expect you to use it wisely.

“Gagsy, your perpetual gloom and doom attitude about everything under the sun really gets old. … Good coaches can and do get things done at UW.” — Blog comment on a column by WTE sports editor Robert Gagliardi from Aug. 16

What is the role of a sports writer at the Wyoming Tribune Eagle?

Is it to be an objective eye, reporting what is seen on the field and heard from the coaches and players? Is it to be a cheerleader, urging local high-school teams and the University of Wyoming on to victory? Or is it to provide readers with insight and understanding that they can’t get anywhere else, whether that analysis makes them feel good about their teams or makes them worry that things are not going as they like?

That’s somewhat of a rhetorical question because anyone who reads the WTE sports pages knows that editor Robert Gagliardi and his crew do more than just stand back and watch a report what happens. Yes, they do report on games, teams, players and coaches, and the expectation for their news stories is that they seek to put personal opinion aside. But we also ask them to give readers perspective and understanding through columns and analytical pieces.

Our belief is that these guys are the experts. Gagliardi, for instance, has been covering the Cowboys for more than a decade. He brings a depth of understanding to his columns that few others can, given both his time with the UW programs and his ability to talk to players, coaches and administrators. Fans don’t get that kind of access, and it is our belief that he should share that with readers. Yes, everyone has an opinion, and you can rush to the blogs to hear what they have to say. But it is the UW beat writer who is on the inside, and he can — and should – tell readers what he is learning and his thoughts about where the programs are going.

Unfortunately, too many fans — both at the local and UW levels — would rather have their ears tickled than to have to consider that their team, school or program might not be as good as they think it is. Certainly, many are loyal to their teams, but their expectation that the WTE sports staff should be equally loyal is pure foolishness. It is the job of this newspaper to report the news and to provide context so that readers — news, sports, whatever — can better understand what is happening, and what might happen in the future.

Consider Gagliardi’s column of Aug. 16. In it, he talks about the challenges that coaches face in recruiting to Laramie as compared to Albuquerque, N.M., and San Diego, Calif. I’ve been to all three cities, and where would I go on vacation? Well, it wouldn’t be Laramie, particularly in the winter. That is not an insult to the Gem City; it is a fact of life that UW recruiters have to deal with. Yes, some coaches have won there. Will they win going forward? It’s hard to say — and that really is all that Gagliardi is saying. Yet some readers chose to see the column as an attack on Laramie and UW. To be honest, they need to get over it.

If readers are looking for sports columns tinted in brown and gold, they need to look elsewhere. There are other sports writers in this state who will tell them what they want to hear: that everything is  great at UW. Those writers dress themselves up in skirts and letter sweaters and stand on the sidelines and swoon when the Pokes score a touchdown or intercept a pass while ignoring the challenges that a small school like UW faces in big-time college athletics. That is not our approach here. (It’s the same with high school sports, by the way. WTE writers are paid to take off the rosy glasses and let the chips fall where they may.)

Perhaps of all reporters at the WTE, the sports staff may have the toughest job, since the writers serve both as reporters and commentators. That can cause problems with obsessive fans but also with administrators, coaches and players who would prefer to pretend that everything is great. It never is; that is just a fact of life. Certainly, our sports editors and reporters should offer praise when things are going well — and they do that. But that is only half of their jobs. The other half is to point out the flaws and offer possible solutions. And they will continue to do it with passion and energy. If that makes some fans unhappy, well, so be it.

At least Wyoming won’t have to deal with news stories of angry demonstrators speaking their minds at town meetings on health-care reform.

Given that the state’s delegation is all-Republican — and that all of its members have expressed opposition to the Democratic Congress’ proposed solutions to the problems of health-care access and rising medical costs — it would be shocking to see any of the kinds of protests in this state that are going on across the nation.

That there won’t be any embarrassing shout-downs is a good thing. There is no need to add Wyoming to the roster of states whose residents are coming off as out-of-control nincompoops.

On the other hand, it is important that there be a real debate about health-care reform from both conservatives and liberals. This is an issue that will not be going away anytime soon, even if it fails this time around. And it is not as if if every person who lives in Wyoming is a rock-solid conservative. The last time I looked, about one-third of the state’s registration rolls were Democratic, and it’s about 50-50 here in Cheyenne.

Besides, our own U..S. Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., has a seat at the table as negotiations are rolling in the Senate. He needs to know where all people of this state stand, not just those who can make the most noise.

All of us must recognize that these rowdy partisans against health-care reform have as much right to speak up as does anyone else. And it really doesn’t matter whether these are free thinkers or whether their protests are being sponsored by talk radio, the health-insurance industry or anyone else — as some on the other side are claiming, including officials within the Obama administration.

These people are speaking their minds, and they should have every opportunity to do so, whether it is at public forums or in their local newspapers. Some who run editorial pages in America refuse to accept so-called “turf,” those letters that essentially are written by someone else and then are signed by local residents. We disagree with that approach. We accept these letters because we feel they represent the thoughts of those who sign them. However, we will not run the same letters over and over again. And we do prefer that people express their ideas in their own words, rather than in the words of someone else.

On the other hand, it is important that those who oppose health-care reform not try to silence those who favor the current proposals. Name-calling, labeling supporters as “socialists” or as “anti-American” does nothing to advance the debate.  Nor does being loud or abusive at public gatherings. Reform supporters, too, have every right to enter the debate.

Indeed, either side trying to shut up the other may be the most un-American thing of all in this very loud, very partisan debate. The founders did not insert the First Amendment into the Bill of Rights so that one side would be able to use its free-speech rights to suppress the thoughts of the other. Rather, the intention was for the exchange of ideas in a public forum so that Americans could find their way to decisions about the actions of their government and of the people that they send to represent them.

If ever there were a time for such a reasoned debate, it is now.

It is exciting that people who never have been involved in public debate are getting up from in front of their TVs and getting out to express themselves. It also is great to see advocacy publications springing up like the one here in Cheyenne issued by the local Tea Party group. As I told a group of high-schoolers recently, this publication comes very close what the first U.S. newspapers were about: opinion, not news.

It is equally good to see supporters of health-care reform springing into action as well. Both sides need to make their cases well if the majority of Americans is going to make an informed decision about this issue that impacts some 17 percent of the U.S. economy.

But I think the founders would be less excited by the volume and tenor of the conversation (as well as the efforts by some on both sides to deliberately mislead the voters).  It may not happen in Wyoming, but someone is going to get hurt if things continue along this vociferous path. Surely the men who used powerful words to produce such persuasive documents as the Federalist Papers, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights would not be in favor of that.