By Mary Alice Murphy

As my first mentor, Dean Thompson, then the editor of the Silver City Daily Press when I worked there, and now the sports editor of the SCDP, said more than once: "I must be doing something right. One phone call has someone calling me a (expletive deleted) (homophobic description deleted) because we're too conservative. The next one has someone calling me a (expletive deleted) (homophobic description deleted) because we're too liberal."

The Beat strives to be balanced. I received a "shame on you" email, because something that was posted was considered too conservative and attacking by the reader. He must not have noticed that mere minutes before that item was posted, a quite liberal position that was anti-2nd amendment was posted. And both came from other sources, not the Beat.

Often a phone call or email will be asking the Beat to please cover something that will present a single political viewpoint. I usually say: "I won't, because I don't have time to cover everything from every viewpoint." Sometimes, they are newsworthy enough that one of us will cover it.

You, as a Beat reader, may have noticed that many articles on the front page have bylines. Beat freelancers and I, the editor, write those. We strive to be as factual and accurate as humanly possible.

The vast majority of items posted to local news releases, sports, obituaries, non-local news releases, community news, New Mexico legislative session 2017, and other pages of the Beat are submitted by email and posted as written.

Unlike other news sources, such as print newspapers, which may rewrite these news releases, we don't. We may edit them for grammar and spelling, but usually do not rewrite them.

The only time you will see another byline on an item is if we have received permission to republish an item from another publication, and therefore give full attribution to the author and source.

If an item offends you, don't read it. If you don't like a columnist's viewpoint, don't read it.

However, if you find an error in an article written by one of us, please let us know, so we can correct it.

I certainly don't read everything in paper newspapers, so why should you read everything in a digital one?

Content on the Beat

WARNING: All articles and photos with a byline or photo credit are copyrighted to the author or photographer. You may not use any information found within the articles without asking permission AND giving attribution to the source. Photos can be requested and may incur a nominal fee for use personally or commercially.

Disclaimer: If you find errors in articles not written by the Beat team but sent to us from other content providers, please contact the writer, not the Beat. For example, obituaries are always provided by the funeral home or a family member. We can fix errors, but please give details on where the error is so we can find it. News releases from government and non-profit entities are posted generally without change, except for legal notices, which incur a small charge.

NOTE: If an article does not have a byline, it was written by someone not affiliated with the Beat and then sent to the Beat for posting.

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Editor's Notes

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