How I treat the news that comes across my desk is important to our readers.

In the past 18 months or so that I’ve been the editor, that has never been made clearer than these past two weeks.

Last week, the Montana Office of Public Instruction wrote a letter to the Madison County Attorney’s office saying the requested audit of the Ennis School District’s books wasn’t necessary.

The letter also said very clearly that OPI would be checking in on the Ennis School District concerning how they used the new school building for adult education since much of the money for the building was coming from the adult education fund in the district’s budget. (Please read the story in this week’s paper.)

I received a copy of the letter, indirectly, last Tuesday. I didn’t receive it from the OPI and so I don’t know exactly when it was issued.

Tuesday is the day we go to press and so I was faced with a decision: drop a story already in the works and hustle to write a short article on the letter, or hold on to it and use it as the news hook for a more thorough piece I wanted to write about the rationalization and process the Ennis School Board went through in determining how to fund the new building.

Obviously, I chose the latter option.

Fast forward to Monday. Immediately after a meeting with Ennis superintendent Doug Walsh and Ennis School Board chairman Marc Glines about the new school funding. I returned to the office about the same time as David Kelley, who presented me with a copy of a lawsuit he had just filed against the Ennis School Board trustees and Walsh.

I decided to immediately post an article about the lawsuit, complete with a copy of the document, on our Website. The article was brief and to the point, particularly since none of the people being sued had been served with the lawsuit yet and couldn’t comment.

Since I posted the article online, I have fielded questions about why I chose to treat the lawsuit with urgency and not the OPI letter. These are fair questions.

One thing I learned in my journalism ethics class is that people are apt to think a newspaper is biased for several reasons, one being when a paper treats news stories differently.

I should have written an article last week about the OPI letter. In hindsight, it was a mistake not to. I believe this week’s article gives a much clearer context for the letter, but I could have written an article last week and provided more context for the letter in another article this week. Or I could have done something online. Regardless, I should have treated the letter with the urgency it deserved.

More important to me is the tremendous rift the bigger issue surrounding the school board and superintendent is creating in the community. People on both sides are hurt, frustrated and confused and each week seems to bring more contention and deepen the divide.

I haven’t picked a side in this and won’t. People from both sides have come to me to talk about their issues and concerns. People from both sides have asked me to write stories highlighting what they think are crucial issues. Everyone has made good points. Too bad they can’t put aside their frustrations and animosity and just listen to each other.