About that letter from Elaine Schaefer
I violated one of my cardinal rules last week.
The newspaper has a longstanding policy of cutting off political letters to the editor on the Sunday before Election Day.
We do that for a very good reason. It’s not exactly fair to have a letter appear Monday or Tuesday making a claim and not offer the other side the opportunity to respond before voters go to the polls.
So why was there a political letter on last Monday’s op-ed page?
Let me try to explain. This all started Sunday morning, literally as I was riding in the car, returning from a family breakfast celebrating my wife’s
60th birthday. Ironically, one of the topics I had been asked about over the eggs (which I don’t eat by the way) was the bitter race for County Council in Delaware County, including all those ads saying terrible things about one of the Democratic candidates, Elaine Paul Schaefer.
When the phone rang as we were riding home, I responded the way I almost always do. This was my work phone, and I took one glance at my wife and offered the following thought: This is not good news. She didn’t flinch. After living with me for 36 of those
60 years, she knows the routine. And who would be on the other end of the line?
Well, that would Schaefer.
She was requesting the chance to write a letter to the editor for Monday, to defend herself against some of the claims that had been made about her.
I decided to grant her request. She had been attacked in print, on radio and TV in connection with something she was only tangentially tied into as part of her duties as a Radnor commissioner. be
Elaine
Some of those claims by her Republican counterparts have been included in our coverage of the race. In fact it was mentioned in Sunday morning’s preview story on the County Council race.
That would be the matter of former Radnor Board of Commissioners President Phil Ahr, who entered a guilty plea in federal court to child porn charges.
If you listen to some of the ads, you easily could come away with the impression that Schaefer, and in fact all three Democratic council candidates, are supporting Ahr and giving a platform to a predator in another matter, that being an endorsement from a county prison reform group in which a convicted child molester holds a position.
The arrows against Schaefer stem from a vote she took to keep Ahr on the board. That vote was taken before he was charged, but apparently after she was briefed by police and investigators on the investigation and the looming charges against Ahr.
Let’s be clear. I don’t think Schaefer handled this situation all that well. She probably should not have stood behind Ahr, a fellow Democrat.
But none of the ads ever mention the fact that she immediately called on him to step down after he was charged.
And to suggest that she somehow is supporting a child predator is just simply wildly off base.
I could have stuck with my rule and informed Schaefer that it was too late, that she missed her chance to respond.
I decided not to - and I fully expected to hear about it later in the day. It did not take long.
As it turned out, Schaefer was not the only person interested in getting a letter into the Monday paper. Late Sunday afternoon I received an email from county Assistant District Attorney Mike Mattson. I decided not to run it.
Monday morning, I wrote a blog item about my decision to run the Schaefer letter. Mike Mattson saw it. He was not amused. He fired off an email calling me on the carpet.
“A more glaring example of your bias in favor of Democrats I cannot recall,” he wrote.
For the millionth time, I don’t have a bias in favor of Democrats. OK, you can stop laughing now. But it’s true. When it comes to opinion, I’m an equal opportunity publicist. In fact, I make it a point to tell people who are complaining about our coverage that if they disagree, they are free to write a letter to the editor, and I will run it on our op-ed page. Mattson was not done. “Although your “cardinal rule” prohibits you from publishing either letter, you chose to publish a letter that could have been submitted days or even weeks ago and refused to publish a letter that die to the timeline of events could have been submitted no earlier than yesterday.
What is this guy, some kind of lawyer? He’s building a pretty good case.
“Cardinal Rules are not meant to be broken and are certainly not meant to be broken only in favor of one side of the political aisle … Your actions are a text book example why so many Americans have lost faith in mainstream media.”
The funny thing is, it was a really good letter. Mattson lives in Thornbury Township, which just a few days before had been rocked by an EF2 tornado. In his letter he took prominent Democrats, including Gov. Tom Wolf to task for rallying in Media for the Delco Democratic slate, but not stopping a few miles down Baltimore Pike to inspect the damage and visit with families in Thornbury. He said it was a symptom of Democratic candidates – choosing party over people.
Here’s a news bulletin for you: I happen to agree with him. It was really tone deaf on the part of the governor and others not to make an appearance in Thornbury.
But Mattson also used his letter to go to bat for Republican County Council candidate Jim Raith, who just happens to be the chairman of the Thornbury Board of Supervisors. Raith was on the scene constantly in the wake of the storm late Thursday night, directing the cleanup efforts. Good for him.
Elaine Schaefer was responding to direct attacks on her that had been repeated for weeks, including our Sunday election preview story. I believe she deserved a chance to respond. While I thought Mattson’s was a very good letter, he was merely making general political observations, and also boosting a Republican candidate.
As I have said many times, this business has changed drastically in the last decade or so. There was a time when we were the only game in town. Not anymore. Every person with a Twitter account, Facebook feed and phone is now a publisher.
So Mattson instead simply bypassed the newspaper and published the letter on his Facebook page. Of course he added that “I am disappointed that the Daily Times editor who regularly espouses his paper’s political neutrality chose to engage in this biased behavior.”
That opened the floodgates. His Facebook page was deluged with comments supporting him and taking me to task for the decision I made.
I spent much of the rest of the day answering the phone and responding to emails explaining my stance and defending my decision.
The next day, Schaefer, Monica Taylor and Christine Reuther led a Blue Wave that crashed over Delaware County, as Democrats seized control of county government.
For some reason, I don’t think that Monday letter from Schaefer turned the tide in their favor.
I know people didn’t like my decision. And I respect their right to disagree.
In a year, we will go to the polls again in a presidential election that will likely be the most contentious election in U.S. history.
I can hardly wait.