A reader threatened to cancel the newspaper today because he didn’t like the views on the opinion page. He seemed to think that the views represented how our reporters covered and wrote stories.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t convince the gentlemen that he was wrong about the newspaper. What is even more frightening is there other individuals out there who seem to be confused as to the purpose of the opinion page and how stories are written for the other pages of the newspaper.

The opinion page is exactly that — a composite of opinions from our readers. They don’t have to agree on a topic. Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. That’s called free speech in America. We will refrain from publishing racists, vulgar or other inappropriate letters but we don’t restrict the opinions to just one side or another. For example, we run letters from readers who are against abortion and also letters from those who are for it.

However, for the news pages, our reporters make every effort to write stories impartially and have comments from both sides of an issue.

The irate reader questioned why we ran a story about Sarah Palin visiting Clarkston. Well, it should be obvious that she is a national figure who visited a local community. The reader may not like Palin or the fact she visited Clarkston but her visit was news.

Unfortunately, I didn’t seem to get him to understand that nor the differences between the opinion page and the news pages.

With all due respect to this reader and others, you need to be first, more open-minded and second, take a closer look at The Oakland Press.

If they do, then they should realize that the opinion page and what appears there is vastly different from the way news stories are written.