What’s fair? That’s the overriding question we ask when it comes to The Oakland Press Opinion Page.

What is fair to the readers? What is a fair policy concerning letters to the editor and guest opinions? What qualifies as a letter, which is limited to 250 words and what qualifies as guest opinion, which can run up to 600 words?
There are no definite answers but we’ve established some guidelines that help us decide.

For example, during the election season, which we are fully into, candidates are constantly wanting us to run guest opinions from them about a certain topic or issue. But usually the opinions are geared to “voting for me” type writing. That’s OK but if we run one such guest opinion, we have to run them all — and space is at a premium. We just don’t have it.

So, loosely, when it comes to guest opinions from political candidates, we put them online. We believe they have something to say and as potential law makers and leaders, our readers might want to hear more detail about their plans — more than what the news side profiles can offer.

But space is limited, as I’ve said.

We make exceptions for candidates if they are incumbent officials and write about a topic related to their work for the general public. For example, the treasurer writing about finances or the sheriff writing about law enforcement are guest opinions that we would try to get on the Opinion Page, provided they stick to one topic and don’t throw in a “vote for me” sentence. When the guest opinion becomes a plea to win votes, it has to go online — to be fair.

We are constantly reviewing this policy and we admit, sometimes a guest opinion gets placed online that should go in the regular edition and one gets placed on the Opinion Page that might have been more of an online piece.

Over-all, we do the best we can to be fair.