Pondering Pundit

This political season has been an interesting one to say the least. Candidates doing their normal mudslinging and making promises to the voters on what they will do if they get elected. Spending money to get the votes by running television, radio, and newspaper ads to keep their names and faces in the forefront. Just another typical political season.

The Cibola Citizen put together a voters’ guide to help the citizens have more information about each of the candidates running in this year’s election, and yes, we also ran a bunch of political ads in the paper. Now all these ads were paid for by the candidate or a group that was supporting the candidate. The Cibola Citizen did not endorse a single candidate.

However, over the past few weeks, I have received several calls, emails, or face-to-face comments about how the Cibola Citizen is nothing but a Democratic rag or a Republican rag and it was all because of the ad content in the paper. Individuals were cussing at me, calling me names, and telling me where I could go and that is okay, they have that right.

But let me explain.

The Cibola Citizen does not and will never endorse any candidate. That is not our job. However, the Citizen will accept paid advertisement for said candidates. Afterall, that is how a paper makes its revenue through advertisement and circulation.

The newspaper is here to inform the public, the voters, the citizens, and the community about what is taking place in the community. So yes, we will run press releases from all politicians that are relevant to our area. And yes, we will run advertisement from all politicians that are relevant to our area.

It is our job to give the readers, the voters, and the citizens all the information we have available to us. The newspaper is here to chronicle the history of our communities.

To all of you that did call me and tell me off, whether it was from anger or ignorance, I am sorry that you are so upset about the newspaper doing its job. But you called and told off the wrong person. If you are mad or upset that the Democrats or Republicans are not representing you, then your call should have gone to them.

The Cibola Citizen reached out to all the candidates relevant to our community to see if they wanted to run political ads in the paper; we reached out to all of them to get interviews. Most responded and a few declined and some never returned the call or emails. We did what we could with what we had.

However, I do appreciate all the calls, emails, or text messages I receive. That means the community wants to be involved and that is outstanding. The Cibola Citizen invites all to send letters to the editor or emails or make phone calls to our office. Your input is valued, and we will respond.

I hope everyone got out and voted yesterday, especially those that took the time to call, email and or text me all those lovely fouled mouthed comments.