Feedback is always welcome

    Scott Loftis

Filling this space each week can be a bit of a challenge. Sometimes I’m especially fired up about a particular topic and can’t wait to get to the keyboard.

Other times, it takes me a bit to decide on a subject and I often worry that readers will not be pleased. I write about my family quite often, because they are the center of my life. But in the past, readers have complained that writers on this page use the space as a “personal journal.”

Still, sometimes I hear from readers who tell me they enjoy reading about my family. With that in mind, next week I’ll be writing about fishing with my 7-year-old grandson, Liam. Sneak preview: He caught a fish without any assistance whatsoever, for the first time that I know of, and even admitted it was more fun than watching YouTube videos.

I write about politics fairly frequently, too. Of course, when you express a political viewpoint, you’re immediately going to have a percentage of readers disagree. That’s fine; in fact, I like it. One of the things I hope to accomplish as a writer is to make people think. Just maybe, if I express a point of view and explain the reasoning behind it, one reader out there will take the time to consider what I’ve written with an open mind.

Meanwhile, many of the readers who don’t agree with me will not recognize the difference between a column, which expresses the author’s opinion and thus is subjective by nature, and a news story, which should always be objective and balanced. That lack of understanding is more frustrating.

I’m meandering a bit, but back to the point of all this. I was mulling what to write about this week and actually contemplating stealing an idea from Steve Barnes’ column on this page, when our office manager Melody Strodtman delivered Monday morning’s mail.

Included was a note that “Barbara” had sent along with her subscription renewal.

“Thank you for a really good paper with all the local news and great pictures,” she wrote. She also requested that we go back to a previous design of the front page that included a background photo of white clouds against a blue sky at the top of the page.

Thank you so much for your kind note, Barbara. You have no idea how wonderful it is to hear from readers who appreciate the paper and all the hard work that goes into it — especially early on a Monday morning after the alarm clock went of f at 4 a.m.

Also, I’ll look into adding the blue sky back to the top of the front page. I enjoyed it, too. There was a reason for the change, but maybe we should have left it alone.

Readers, I want to hear from you. Tell me what you like. Tell me what you don’t like. Tell me what you think we could be doing better. This newspaper belongs to the people of Carroll County and I’m grateful every day for the opportunity to serve our community.

••• Scott Loftis is editor and publisher of the Carroll County News. His email address is SLoftis@CarrollCoNews.com.