It seems we need to explain some things for those who don’t understand, lie, or jump to conclusions.

Several posts are making the rounds on Facebook attacking the Maries County Advocate. Let me explain our process.

First - When it comes to elections and letters to the editor, it is our policy to ensure candidates have the opportunity to respond to election-related criticism before voters go to the polls. This is not uncommon. It happens in most elections. This is not a new policy.

Mark Morgan’s letter came in the week before the election. Rather than refuse to print the letter that was an exercise of Free Speech, which we promote in principle, we asked Tony Skouby if he wished to respond to Mark Morgan’s letter to the editor. We did not share Morgan’s letter to the editor with Skouby. Morgan had already shared it with the masses on Facebook. We only asked if he wanted to respond.

Furthermore, we explained what we did in an Editor’s Note in the spirit of transparency. There should never be a question of why for those who read the letters in this publication. We constantly strive to allow everyone to respond. To give everyone fair coverage, we have a policy that articles and editorials making allegations against candidates will not run the week before the election when they do not have the opportunity to defend themselves.

Others here obviously disagree. Some have chosen not to promote the spirit of Free Speech by making long political comments on an official government Facebook page and turning off comments so no one can refute any claims. We will not uphold this type of censorship.

Second - We have never hidden a story for any one person, especially a political candidate. Been short-staffed? Ran out of time? Not had the resources to investigate promptly? Yes. Hide facts from the public? No. You can ask anyone. We have run good articles about Mark Morgan, Chris Heitman, the county, cities of Belle, Vienna and more.

We have also run stories that have made all of those people mad. I have fielded angry phone calls from everyone. We report as many facts as we can and let the chips fall where they may. When we are wrong, we run corrections and apologize. When something could be read in a way that a reasonable person would misunderstand, we correct it. We are a reliable news source, and it is the hill we will die on. We are not afraid to call out mistruths or mistakes, especially our own. I’m sure in the future we will print stories that will make people very happy and very mad, and that is just the way it goes in the newspaper.

Third - MoFreePress has alleged that because we have a paid advertisement from Skouby, we won’t run any negative stories about him. We also have a paid advertisement from Katy Slone. So what does that mean? If that is true, why is the “evidence” offered to support these allegations an article about a plea deal that Tony Skouby orchestrated, written by this newspaper?

Also, MoFreePress, in case you don’t understand campaign finances, if you offer one candidate the ability to run paid advertisements at a discount, that counts as a campaign donation. I hope you have filed that as a donation or allow other candidates that same price. If you don’t, you are giving one candidate preferential treatment (favoritism), which is an ethics violation and raises concerns about your credibility as a credible “news source.”

All of our ad prices are available, and we have never given a discount to any one candidate. Everyone pays the same amount. We have many advertising options for candidates, and both candidates in this race purchased ads of different sizes.

I respectfully ask that MoFreePress remove this allegation, published without doing journalistic investigation, acknowledge their mistake, and offer a retraction and apology. 

Fourth - We have never received any official information from Morgan regarding caseloads. We have not been asked to correct any article we have run. Any claim of this is false. From our current understanding, the numbers Skouby is using are from the Maries County Court Clerk, and the numbers Morgan is using are from Case.net. One is all cases from any law enforcement organization, and one is only local cases. This makes both numbers correct, but each one answers a different question.