Editor: Explanation For Removed Letter

A Letter to the Editor that appeared on the Harrison Patch Monday was removed Monday night for several reasons. I wanted to take a moment to explain why we reconsidered publishing the opinion piece.

Although we at Patch absolutely encourage readers to submit their thoughts and opinions at all times, there are certain boundaries that need to be accomplished in order to keep this site as valuable to readers as possible.

With election season already in full-swing, there are sure to be plenty of opinions about this year's candidates. We want to hear from you. However, we do not want to print information that has not been confirmed and substantiated. The letter posted on Monday strongly urged residents to stay away from voting for Republican candidates in this year's election, which was the authors opinion and he is more than entitled to share it.

The letter also cited several specific instances where the writer believed that candidates had crossed ethical boundaries in the past and questioned their leadership ability in the future.

The letter was removed because these specific incidents have not been substantiated at this point, and it has been decided it is not fair for either party to allow this type of information to be posted moving forward until it can be confirmed to be 100 percent true.

If you would like to share your opinion about this year's election, always feel free to do so. However, please keep in mind the difference between opinion and fact. If you want to share facts to back up your opinion, that's wonderful, just please provide a link to information that shows where your point is coming from.

Clearly, these guidelines will not cover every situation in detail, so if you have a question about what we are looking to accomplish here at Patch, please contact me at zacho@patch.com.

It is my hope that by following these guidelines with future Letters to the Editor we can keep this election season productive, factual and interesting throughout.