I have said many times that only two people call the newspaper: Those who are desperately trying to get something into the newspaper, and those who are desperately trying to keep something out of the newspaper.
I can't tell you how many phone calls I have gotten in which the voice on the other end of the line says something like this: "Uh, a friend of mine got busted for DUI. Is that going to be in the paper?"
Some of those same people call back incensed when in fact the item they feared does in fact make it into print - or online.
Of course they inevitably want to dispute the facts in the story, assure us that we got it all wrong, and that we'd be hearing from their lawyer. Sometimes we actually do. It's not a pleasant experience.
You work in this business for awhile, and you get used to it. We deliver a lot of bad news, embarrassing things that many people would just as soon never saw the light of day.
What we don't often get is people calling the newspaper to thank us for something that appeared in the paper.
That changed last week.
And it came from an unlikely source, one that is usually defending his city from the way it is often portrayed in the pages of the newspaper. Yes, I realize that describes many towns in Delaware County.
But it is particularly apt for this one town.
And it's why it made that voice mail special.
So who was it? It's in my Monday Letter From the Editor.
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