Columnists have right to throw in opinions

It is an interesting time to be writing a column these days in Naperville.

Scorching e-mails to the contrary, I am actually a trained journalist. I graduated from an accredited journalism school. I spent years as a reporter for big-city newspapers, stringing for a couple national magazines and freelancing and writing columns for others.

I'm a member of a national journalists and authors professional association.

I began writing newspaper columns 10 years ago to cut down my travel schedule and deadline pressure and spend more time at home. Inserting my opinion into my writing didn't come easily after so many years of,-- not so much keeping my opinion to myself, but not really forming opinions about the things I wrote about.

That might be hard to believe. But when you are trained by old-school journalists to get just the facts and report them in a fair and balanced way, that is your entire focus.

While making sure to interview people from both sides of an issue and checking and re-checking the facts of a piece, I don't remember having the time or inclination to agree or disagree with the subjects.

Accuracy, fairness and clean writing were the goals.

So given that background, three local and near-local events during the past couple weeks have combined to turn my simmering head-shaking into full-blown frustration.

The first is some of the responses I've received from columns about the lawsuit against Indian Prairie Unit District 204. Many of the negative responses have targeted my "bias" and blasted me for being "one-sided."

Those are criticisms that would have devastated me as a reporter, but as I have tried to explain to those who have e-mailed me directly, columnists do not have to cover all sides of an argument.

Columnists are encouraged to explore their opinions -- which, as I have learned, is a much easier thing to do when you are writing about things that affect you (one reason why old-school reporters generally stayed away from reporting on anything too close to them.)

I don't completely blame readers for being confused by contemporary journalism. More and more "straight news" includes comments from reporters imbedded in stories, and that seems to be OK these days, though it would have earned an automatic F during my journalism school days and a strong delete button when I worked in a newsroom.

But then, and now, columnists' opinions are legit.

Teachers, however, apparently can't have opinions. Though over the years there have been many times readers told me I should be fired for what I wrote, that usually is not the way it works at a respectable newspaper.

But one particular teacher is losing her journalism job for speaking her mind.

I've never met Linda Kane, and am fairly certain we've never even corresponded, but I know her name and reputation well. As long as I've lived here, I've been impressed by the Naperville Central newspaper -- far and away above that of any other local high school paper -- and, frankly, was jealous of the students' luck in being able to work with someone like Kane at such a young age.

Kane reminds me of the teachers I had in college, men and women who taught us the way they'd been taught, who had high standards and high ethics and a love and respect for what they considered a mission.

The quality of Central's newspaper consistently proved how much Kane's leadership and inspiration meant to NCHS journalists. She is the kind of teacher who changes lives, whose influence is felt for years to come.

I'd rather my kids have a teacher like that than one who does the politically correct thing any day. Some say her misstep was that she criticized her boss in print. Sadly, probably true. But it seems the consequences far outweigh the crime, considering this particular teacher's laudable track record.

Another sad day for local journalism.

The other is an ongoing situation at what used to be the flagship beacon of Chicago-area journalism, Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.

First, a controversy over a dean who wrote a story using an unattributed quote that can't be substantiated (something even a Journalism 101 student wouldn't have done years ago), and now the school apparently is considering changing its name, perhaps to even remove the word "journalism."

If our region's journalistic beacon dims, our local star journalism teacher is removed (in turn hurting development of future excellent journalists) and our residents continue to call for the firing or resignation of anyone who disagrees with them, what is Naperville left with?