“This article seems to be very much slanted. Also very strange that this report has to come out one to three days before the annual town meetings in Hamilton and Wenham. … I’d say this article suggests The Salem News staff is blatantly biased … I am extremely disappointed with this one-sided story.”

Last Friday was a busy day for letters and e-mails from the towns of Hamilton and Wenham to The Salem News. Residents were upset (”appalled” was a word used more than once) at our coverage of the schools and the approaching override vote. As you can see from the sampling above, readers were convinced we were using our May 2 news pages to influence the outcome.

Here’s the interesting part: We were accused of bias by both sides. The first quote at the top of this column came from a reader in favor of the override; the second from someone who vowed to vote against it.

We ran two stories about the Hamilton-Wenham schools in that May 2 edition. The anti-override folks were upset about one story; those on the other side were angry with the second.

The first ran on the front page and told readers the New England Association of Schools and Colleges had placed Hamilton-Wenham Regional High School on “warning” status.

The regional accrediting agency cited the elimination of core courses, an increase in class size and high athletic fees as factors in its decision. The agency also cited an “inadequate level of finding to support the school’s staffing levels, course offerings, co-curricular activities and technology.”

Override opponents accused the schools and the paper of working in concert to publicize the agency’s decision just days before the two communities’ town meetings in an attempt to drum up sympathy for the district.

The second story, which ran on Page 5, detailed the top 50 salaries in the school district for 2007. Superintendent Marinel McGrath topped the list with gross wages of $167,646. Number 50 on the list, teacher Jean Bailey, made $73,771.

Override supporters were furious. They figured we waited to run the list until just before town-meeting season to fill voters’ heads with images of overpaid educators.

So were we biased for the override, against it, or neither?

I say neither.

Let’s look at the issue of timing. The New England Association of Schools and Colleges sent its warning letter to the high school on Tuesday, April 29. The School Committee was notified the next day, and we learned of the warning on Thursday, May 1. A story, reported by veteran staffer Amanda McGregor, went in the paper the next day.

As for the salary list, our regular readers know such stories are a springtime staple of The Salem News. Most of the other salary lists had run between late February and early April.
Why did the Hamilton-Wenham School District list run so late? You’ll have to ask them.
Administrators there wouldn’t turn over the information | which, by law, is available to the public | until we filed a formal Freedom of Information request. The district then waited two weeks before turning over the information | sorted alphabetically, not by salary. Once reporter Steve Landwehr had the information organized, we put it in the paper.

We could have held both stories until after the Hamilton and Wenham town meetings and avoided a flurry of angry mail. But it would have meant we thought voters in those towns weren’t intelligent enough to read the stories and make up their own minds. It also would have meant holding news because we were afraid of readers’ reactions.

That, in our minds, would have been truly appalling.

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Tomorrow (Saturday), we’ll be running several reader letters on the override proposal in Hamilton and Wenham. Town Meetings in those communities begin next week. They are worth a read, no matter where you live…

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