Politcs and a balance in time

Editor’s note: All letters received by the Daily Bee were published, requiring additional pages dedicated to ensure that all letters received were in the paper prior to Election Day. Our Election Night deadline prohibited us from including all but the first round of ballots counted — at which point Dan McDonald had a lead of seven votes over Steve Lockwood. As soon as results were updated, that information reflecting the votes cast was included first on our Facebook page and then in the print edition.

A number of people have complained to me that they do not read the Daily Bee because it is too grossly biased against conservatives and leans too much to the so-called left. I have not attempted to prove or disprove the complaints — until this year. Using the admittedly small sampling of the letters to the editor during the last week before the Nov. 6 general election, and the reporting in the Daily Bee of the results of the election, an interesting dynamic has appeared which somewhat refutes the complaints, but also underscores the problem.

Of the 23 letters to the editor published from Oct. 29 through Nov. 2 which supported either Dan McDonald or Steve Lockwood, nine were for Dan while 14 were for Steve. That is 39.1 percent for Dan and 60.9 percent for Steve. We do not know exactly how many letters the Bee received and what type of filter was used, if any, to weed out offensive, blatantly misleading, or inciteful letters. What we do know is that the 61 percent to 39 percent split is not a particularly significant bias.

The problem might be seen in Keith Kinnaird’s shading of Dan’s victory by referring to it as a closely fought contest. Of the 18,252 Bonner County votes, Dan received 59.2 percent while Steve received 40.8 percent. Ironically close to the reverse of the letters published. The problem may not be the facts, but the reporting of the facts. Such is the problem in America.

JEREMY CONLIN

Cocolalla