In a small community there are some challenges.
Housing can be a challenge for reporters as well as adding trained staff as we have seen from some revolving doors over the years.
The goal of the Enterprise is to mitigate any and all conflicts of interest. We constantly are checking to manage any leaning or additional benefit between our position in this community and the positions of contributors. There will always be some kind of overlap and our goal is to engage our readers with the clearest and best coverage possible.
Sometimes we partner with other newspapers and media sources when they have the best coverage on a certain topic. We don’t rewrite something from the Record Eagle or another state news source, we give credit so the readers know where the item comes from, as close to the event as possible. They also use some of our stories for the same purposes.
This keeps errors to a minimum and allows us to build trust between sources.
Alan Campbell has a long history producing stories in Michigan. Not only does he have a history with the Enterprise as the former owner, he also has been a frequent winner in both state and national journalism excellence awards. He currently owns and writes through Michigan Stories in publications across Michigan. Rather than just use the Michigan Stories byline, we wanted to be very clear that the writer is Alan Campbell, who serves as a county commissioner.
Alan has a limited role in news coverage and no influence on editorial decisions. He neither attends, participates in, or is privy to any editorial decisions. He and I met and both completely agreed at the time he came into public office, and we both terminated his employment status. He currently only covers outdoor stories. If there are any issues on the county board that we agree or disagree with, Alan will have no influence on that coverage or decision. He also is not associated with our editorial board nor story assignments. He submits his Michigan Stories copy with no guarantee that it will be run by the Enterprise, nor is it mandated as exclusive to the Enterprise.
As we expand our voices in the Enterprise in a small community, we want to be transparent on these decisions and our unfailing focus to keep the lines clean.
Our goal is to increase effectiveness and depth of coverage while paying attention to those potentially gray lines.
David Thornberry Publisher
