A few weeks ago our archives page featured a story about criminal charges filed in 1988 against two individuals who since that brush with the law had become well-loved members of this community before dying tragically and suddenly a year and half ago.
As the editor of the Pathfinder I want to apologize for bringing up this dark time in the lives of people who, by all accounts, were wonderful people.
But to be clear, our archives are selected randomly by a staff member of the Philipsburg Mail. There certainly wasn’t any malicious intent to this republishing of an almost entirely forgotten article from 35 years ago.
You may not be aware, but there is only one member of the Pathfinder staff whose tenure is longer than three months. We have attempted since December to increase the presence of local stories by bringing on new staff who can be in town more and help give a voice to the valleys.
It was never the intention for anyone at the Pathfinder to feature an archives story which hurt anyone’s feelings or brought about any kind of animosity, and as the editor I apologize for any and every time that their surviving family has had to endure questions and relive hard times as a result of this oversight.
After communicating with our office assistant, I was under the impression that the family didn’t wish for me to write a formal apology as it would just bring more attention to it. If this was in err, then I do again apologize for that.
Because of the feelings hurt, we have made a few changes to the archives section. It will no longer be selected by someone from outside of the community. It will now be selected by a member of the Pathfinder office.
We also will do everything we can to only feature stories of a positive nature. The point of the archives was never to dig up gossip or remind people of bad times, the point was to highlight odd and fun stories from the past so that people of Seeley could be reminded of something in the past and perhaps share in a collective memory.
I, the Pathfinder, and the greater network of Ponderosa Publications apologize for this oversight and we hope these changes to the archives section will keep this from happening again in the future.
Asa Thomas Metcalfe
Editor
Seeley Swan Pathfinder
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