Mistakes were made

First, let me say that The Webster Progress Times nor anyone working for the Webster Progress Times or writing for the newspaper intended any harm or meant to offend any of the players, coaches, parents, fans or supporters of East Webster High School by the sports column that ran in last week's paper.

The column drew many irate calls and much animosity. In retrospect, several mistakes were clearly made.

First and most importantly, since I was unaware of what any of the comments in the first and second paragraphs meant I should have cut then or at least questioned their meaning.

Secondly, as a fan column it should have been clearly labeled as such with the author's name and noting that column's are opinion-based items and do not reflect the opinions of The Webster Progress Times. I assumed since it had been running as a sports column for the last seven years that our readers would understand it was a column and not a sports news article. My mother did teach me never to assume and this is a prime example of what assumptions can cause.

Thirdly, when I knew our regular paid football reporter could not cover the East Webster/Eupora game as she has done for years, I should have hired coverage that day rather than letting a sports column suffice as coverage of the game.

While many of the callers made valid points I would like to correct and clarify several assertions made by some.

First, The Webster Progress Times is not biased toward any particular team, school, business or other entity in Webster County. We aim to cover all schools equally and have down a fair job of that for the most part in the past. The Webster Progress Times and its employees are not intent on promoting one school over another. We want to promote all the successes at all the schools for all the students in Webster County.

Second, for the callers who asserted we do not cover East Webster schools I did calculate our coverage of the schools. From August of last year until October of this year, we had over 350 articles about East Webster Schools in the newspaper. This does not include the number of photos on East Webster since many of the articles had multiple photos. These are articles that specifically mention an East Webster student or students. Our September 30 edition is a great example of how important school coverage is to us for East Webster and Eupora. East Webster alone had seven articles and seventeen photos in that edition.

Several callers also asserted we never cover East Webster football. We have had a paid reporter covering East Webster Football since 2006 and only because of circumstances beyond our control did she not cover the game of East Webster versus Eupora. As noted above, I should have immediately found a reporter to cover the game rather than allowing a sports column from a Eupora fan suffice as coverage. We do now have another experienced reporter covering the East Webster football team.

It also should be noted that running the column is completely on me, the publisher. Neither Russell Hood, news editor nor Charlotte Newman, advertising representative, read the column prior to its printing. It has been emailed directly to me for a longtime. I did and should have at least questioned what the facebook items meant, since I was unaware of their meaning or implications.

For the callers who used certain names for me, they are actually correct. I have been all of those names at least once so far in life.

One bright spot of my error it that I got to talk to several people who I have not talked to in years and while they were upset over the column it was great to be able to catch up on their lives.

After the column and calls, all of us adults could learn from the East Webster and Eupora players. Each person who is angry and upset should watch the game footage and note how many times an East Webster Player helped up a Eupora player after a tackle or vice versa. I believe the players' show of great sportsmanship would teach us all it is just a game and it is more important to reach out with an open hand of help than to walk away angry.

I hope the community as a whole can quickly move past this and find common ground of cheering all students on toward success because with unemployment at 13.8 percent in the county and the economic outlook only looking more dire over the next three years, it will be these students' future we will be endangering if we do not work together for a better community.

Editor's note: Joseph McCain is the publisher of The Webster Progress Times and may be reached at 662-803-5236, 773-6241 or email newsroom@winstoncountyjournal.com