WARNING: The letter to the community uses a curse word. While our standard policy replaces the word with symbols, we feel the word is needed to express the writer’s intent in this instance.

BY MILES LAYTON

Don’t know where to start…

Scrolling through the phone feed late last night, I saw a story posted by a local newspaper that gave me grave pause.  

Front page story made me angry – a tragic story about a husband being charged after an accident that claimed his wife’s life. When I saw the headline, I thought about how that family is still grieving. I thought about the insensitive timing and placement of this front page story in an edition published Thanksgiving week.  

Out of respect for the family, the man and his wife’s memory, I’m not going to include the family’s name in this column in case these words were to climb in Google’s search metrics, thus adding to their misery. Instead, I’m writing this letter to the people of this community – if you know who I’m talking about, then you know, so please say a prayer for them.  

The duty of a newspaper – a good newspaper – is to serve the community. While this story has its place, the timing and its placement on the front page is a slap in the face to the Chowan and Perquimans communities because it shows – again – how much this media outlet holds us in contempt.  

I knew the woman who died Sept. 1 – a beloved wife, mother, teacher and civic leader. I wrote the story about her passing – her legacy in life. 

There are so many chapters to her life – the lives that she touched.  

Since her passing, a scholarship fund has been created in her name that has amassed tens of thousands of dollars that will help future high school seniors achieve their ambitions.  

The woman was an organ donor – so someone else can have a better life because of her gift.    

A few weeks after she died, I remember hugging her grieving husband of 31 years when he came to the newspaper office.  

Knowing how much he loved her and the tragedy that had happened, it was heartbreaking seeing him in that kind pain. 

This week, his pain – that hot searing pain of loss – is front page news again. 

The family didn’t deserve to have this wound reopened during Thanksgiving. The story could’ve held a week or been placed deep inside the newspaper. As this story will attest, it has been holding for some time now so another week wouldn’t have made much difference.  

The husband/father – he’s a good man and the family are good people too. This story is not about someone who is evil and deserves what the justice system and the Lord have in mind, but about someone who is good – the worst day of his life is front page news again.   

And then to write the article in a way that made it seem like the big reason it wasn’t published earlier was because the police department was dragging its feet. Really!?

Maybe the police were thinking the same thing I’d be thinking when some idiot journalist comes knocking — that I don’t trust those folks to get it right, particularly with a sad story like this. Perhaps the police were holding off until they had their “i’s” dotted and “t’s” crossed before releasing any information.

This family – they are good folks who wouldn’t say an unkind word because they follow the Good Book’s teaching. 

But I’m a little more “rough around the edges” as folks say, so I don’t mind saying to the newspaper who published this front page story during Thanksgiving week – FUCK YOU!  

Through the years, this newspaper has published other stories that have given a middle finger to communities across Northeast North Carolina.   

So again I’ll say, FUCK YOU!  

Why do you hold our community in contempt? Is it because we may vote a different way? Is it because of our hometown values? 

Trust me when I say, it doesn’t matter anymore what you think. That’s why your subscriber base and ad revenues have collapsed. Legal ads — paid for with taxpayer dollars — subsidize local news’ survival instead of subscribers and local businesses. Church newsletters have a deeper reach than local newspapers near and far.

The world has moved on from the days when people trusted mainstream media outlets. 

People see through the lies, particularly during the past election cycle.  

People are tired of stories that run counter to good sense and the facts. 

As an editor and reporter for more years than I care to count, I can say I’m disgusted by what I see in the media these days.  

To end this column on a positive note, a good newspaper should inform and strive, as best as possible, to do no harm. That doesn’t mean sugar coat the truth, but it also doesn’t mean self-righteously giving everyone the middle finger and calling it journalism.  

To the community, I want to apologize for those in my profession who don’t understand how to say “sorry” and when they do, that correction is buried on the bottom of page 2.  

To the family, I want to say I’m sorry for your loss. To the grieving husband, you are in our family’s thoughts and prayers and I believe God is with you. 

There is a better way to do journalism.