Being honest with the readers

I prefer to let my writing speak for itself — and I work hard to get the story right, so I stand by my work. My recent articles on the Florence County tax assessor situation are examples of this. Some recent letters to the editor, however, leave me with a few comments that I couldn’t fit into my articles.

First of all, a quick review: Florence County Tax Assessor Leval Williams was fired last month. His termination notice states that he directed “a contractor” to change the dates on 360 tax notices so that late penalties would be removed.

Those 360 tax notices had been sent to a local developer — and that’s where the problem developed.

Being a responsible journalist, I spent the better part of a workday learning about the particular type of property tax in this case, and I contacted the developer to get comments from him. I never once insinuated he did anything wrong.

That didn’t stop people from reading it that way. I’ve been accused of spreading “half-truths” and “misinformation” and writing a “sensational” article.

This situation, however, isn’t your average article where the journalist just interviews county officials, asks questions, and comes back to the office and writes. No, this one required Freedom of Information Act requests and digging through a huge stack of personnel documents.

County officials weren’t talking because the issue was a personnel matter, so I did my best to get all the answers that I could.
Unfortunately, after interviewing the developer, the county finance director and the interim tax assessor, we couldn’t determine whether the tax notices should have even had late penalties to begin with. The county auditor’s office had that information, but the auditor wasn’t in that afternoon. We’d been working on the story for several days and didn’t want to sit on it much longer.

Later, we learned from the auditor that the taxes hadn’t been paid late. When we did, we ran a follow-up story. Believe me, I didn’t “fail to state” that fact in my first story. I can only print what I know by press time. I know no one would prefer for me to speculate.

Also, one letter took issue with my use of the word “contractor,” which I simply quoted from county documents. Once again, that was all I knew at the time. I also wrote that the assessor’s termination notice didn’t state who the contractor was. In no way does that insinuate that the developer — who obviously is just that, a developer, and not a contractor — was directed to change the dates on tax notices.

Upon learning more information, however, I went back to the county administrator and asked about the contractors the county uses. He told me the county hires contractors to perform some elements of computer programming and that the contractors only perform tasks they are authorized to do by the appropriate people. Once again, I print the information I know and can verify.

Bottom line: I must have my information confirmed before I put it to press. If I don’t know the answer to something, I state that in my articles. That’s not “insinuating” anything; that’s being honest with the readers.

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