(Editor's Notes by Christina Myer - Photo Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection)

Having worked in newsrooms for — gosh, has it been decades now? — I sometimes find myself wondering why I know something. Did I learn it in school? Or did I learn it on the job in rooms where information flies around like sawdust in a mill?

When a younger person asked a few questions recently about government and politics, I was surprised to find out she was learning none of it in school. At first I thought “Well that’s basic political science or civics — maybe a little history and social studies thrown in. We all learned those things, didn’t we?”

But the more I think about it, I might have been given a skeletal understanding in public school, but the meat was put on those bones as I delved into reporting about the communities in which I lived.

It’s a luxury we have as journalists. We get paid to ask questions and find out about things. We get paid to research and learn. And we do our best to pass along that information to our readers. But it seems as though some of what we acquire over the years should be basic knowledge for all citizens.

I suppose the complexity lies in the differences between our communities, counties, school districts, states … part of the beauty of living in this country is that those who formed the various levels of government in different places did so in a way that best suited those communities.

So, when I started trying to answer some of this person’s questions, I found myself saying “Well, not in Ohio, but …” or “The school district here works that way, but other counties are consolidated.”

Add it to the long list of things we hope teachers will cram into the 13 years they have with our public school students, I suppose.

Still, it reminds me how grateful I am to do the work I and everyone else in the newsroom does.

And the discussion gave me a new reason to hope for our future. Surely there are more out there starting to ask the same questions. As we work our way through this graduation season, many will find themselves with new resources for finding the answers.

Once they get those answers, they’ll start coming up with new ideas and new solutions. I, for one, can’t wait to be along for the ride.

***

A word for my readers who wonder why I fell into the trap laid by the submitter of a guest op-ed this weekend. The technique of including excerpts from a challenged book with the full knowledge that the editor of a newspaper will need to remove those excerpts — because a newspaper is widely distributed (and an editor has no way of knowing who might pick up and read a newspaper) — is frequently used.

It is meant as a way to “prove” that the chosen excerpts are, indeed, obscene and the books containing them should be removed from libraries, etc. But, of course, no such proof is made.

My belief is that it is not a double standard to remove such excerpts from an item that will be read by thousands of people who choose to read the newspaper this weekend, without prior knowledge of some of its content. To my mind this does not conflict with the belief that the same (or other) material should be available to a person who seeks it out and knows what they are about to read, if they so choose.

Yes, parents who are worried about what their children are consuming should monitor (to the best of their ability) what their children are reading. Parents and kids should have the freedom to have that discussion and make the decision that is best for them.

Christina Myer is executive editor of The Parkersburg News and Sentinel. She can be reached via e-mail at cmyer@newsandsentinel.com</em>