Josephine County has people who can spot the wrong haircut across a parking lot but somehow miss a hand reaching into their government. They can identify an enemy from a campaign photograph, a party registration, or a bumper sticker, then spend months defending someone whose conduct they have never bothered to examine. We have become remarkably efficient at judging strangers and remarkably accommodating toward power.
Generations have passed down the warning against judging a book by its cover. The familiar wording appeared in print by 1849. Nearly two centuries later, we carry cameras in our pockets, summon information in seconds, and still struggle to give another human being the courtesy of being understood before being condemned.
People dress differently. They speak differently. Their skin, hair, accents, expressions, and mannerisms differ. Some are polished in public and awkward in private. Others stumble through a sentence but would stand beside you through the worst day of your life. None of that can be established from a photograph. Yet a face appears on a screen, and the verdict arrives before the headline has been read.
Consider a photograph of Kristi Noem, simply as an example. Before some viewers examine a policy, a decision, or a documented action, they have already decided what kind of person they are looking at. Admirers and detractors can commit the same mistake. A hairstyle becomes evidence. A smile becomes a confession. The actual record sits unopened while everyone argues over the packaging.
Public officials deserve examination. Their decisions affect our money, our rights, and our communities. But examination requires effort. It means reading beyond a caption, checking what happened, and accepting that evidence may disturb an opinion we have grown comfortable carrying. An insult requires considerably less work.
That habit follows us away from the screen and into our friendships. A Republican discovers that a friend is a Democrat, and suddenly years of loyalty are placed under suspicion. A Democrat learns how a neighbor voted, and every ordinary conversation acquires an invisible checkpoint. People who once shared meals begin measuring one another for ideological offenses.
Political disagreement can be serious. Some disagreements involve deeply held convictions, and nobody owes friendship to someone who treats them cruelly. But a party registration alone cannot tell us whether a person is generous, dependable, honest, or capable of listening. Surely we can argue over an election without pretending that every person on the other side has forfeited the right to be treated decently.
Here in Josephine County, I believe that reflex has become useful to people who want obedience. Keep residents angry with one another, and fewer will compare promises with results. Keep the argument fixed on red and blue, and questions about access, influence, spending, and personal advantage can disappear beneath the shouting.
The arrangement rewards anyone willing to manufacture an enemy. A constituent asks an uncomfortable question and becomes disloyal. A journalist follows a troubling lead and becomes a target. Someone challenges the preferred account of events, and the conversation shifts from what happened to what must be wrong with the person asking.
I have watched that machinery operate from the editor’s chair. The bullying and intimidation I have described are continuing problems. They reach into the workday, consume resources, and demand attention that should belong to reporting. There is nothing abstract about trying to run a newspaper while defending its ability to ask questions.
Holding office gives someone defined responsibilities and powers. It does not give them ownership of the community. Residents are entitled to question their decisions. Newspapers are entitled to examine their conduct. A campaign victory does not purchase immunity from either.
When someone seeks authority, we should ask what they intend to do with it. When they obtain it, we should watch what they actually do. The answers belong in decisions, records, expenditures, relationships, and results. A handsome campaign photograph cannot supply them. Neither can the letter beside a candidate’s name.
The Grants Pass Tribune intends to report in detail on what this newspaper has experienced since its founding nearly three years ago, including the political bullying, intimidation, and efforts to discredit our work that I have described. Readers deserve an account they can examine for themselves. We will put the evidence before them and give those involved the opportunity to answer.
That work continues. Lawsuits, threats, and attacks on our credibility do not erase the questions. Nor does our own anger relieve us of the obligation to establish the facts. Every serious allegation deserves careful reporting, especially when the people involved would prefer that the reporting stop.
Josephine County, take the blinders off. Look past the face, the haircut, the party, and the practiced performance. Pay attention to who benefits when neighbors turn against one another. Pay attention to whose questions provoke retaliation and whose conduct escapes examination.
We can remain friends across political differences. We can demand honest government from people we voted for. We can refuse to become recruits in someone else’s private war for influence.
This newspaper will keep asking, keep examining, and keep reporting. Anyone counting on exhaustion to finish the job of intimidation should adjust their expectations. There is more work ahead, and we intend to do it.