This week’s debate between Rep. Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township, and Rocky Raczkowski, Farmington Hills, the Republican challenger for the 9th Congressional seat, lasted only about an hour but it took literally weeks to set up and organize.

The main purpose of the debate was to give residents of the district, which includes most communities in central and eastern Oakland County, a chance to see the two candidates discuss important issues face to face. Debates have become a staple in politics these days and considering the heated race, a debate was more than appropriate.

Finding a location and setting a date and time for the debate were important but the top priority was how to conduct a “fair” debate. The venue, in this case the Oakland County Board of Commissioners auditorium, took only a phone call or two and finding a mutually convenient date and time was just a matter of both candidates checking their schedules.

But when you talk about being “fair,” there are other considerations that take more discussion, time and effort. For example, the auditorium held about 250 people. About 50 seats were needed for Oakland Press,Community Media Network staffers and miscellaneous guests. CMNtv livestreamed the debate on The Oakland Press website and it was also taped for rebroadcasting on local public television access channel 18.

So, how do we fill the 200 seats? Open the doors at 6 p.m. and just let the general public in? It was one alternative but it wasn’t really favored by either candidate or The Oakland Press. The main problem here was what if one side or the other got their supporters their first and thus filled most of the seats? It just wouldn’t fair.
Another avenue was to give each side 100 seats. However, a third alternative was used and it came from the candidates’ themselves. We asked both sides what they wanted to do and each said give us 50 seats and open the other 100 to the general public.
So, that’s what we tried to do but we still had a major problem — what was the fairest way to fill those 100 seats? The candidates were going to give us a list of 50 names with addresses so we could check them off at the door.

But what about the other 100? Remembering the chaos that developed at town hall meetings over the past two years, we decided just opening the doors to the general public wouldn’t necessarily work. We might end up drawing a large, over-flow crowd of angry people who couldn’t get in.

Some type of reservation system seemed to be called for and we selected online registration. The debate was going to be live on the Internet so filling the seats through an online registration system seemed prudent.

It had some problems but it generally seemed to work. People were told in an online news story that if they wanted a seat in the debate, they had to register online. The first 100 to register were sent confirmation notices by e-mail.
There probably is a better way to do this but we couldn’t figure it out at this time. Our main objective, as I said, was to be “fair” and also to avoid the chaos that we saw so often at town hall meetings.

To this extent, we were successful. Both the Peters and Raczkowski supporters, generally, were well behaved and we were able to keep the focus on the candidates.

So you’d like to write a guest opinion instead of a letter to the editor? Well, you’re not alone. You have succumb to the theory that more is better — in this case up to 600 words instead of about 250.

Because of the requests for guest opinions, we’ve had to establish limits on their use simply because we don’t have enough space to run a guest opinion from every who wants to write one.

In fact, often we don’t have enough space for guest opinions that do fit into our loose policy.

Generally, you qualify for a guest opinion if you have some expertise on the topic about which you are writing.
For example, anyone can have an opinion on national health care. So they would qualify for a 250-word letter to the editor.

However, to turn that 250-word letter into a 600-word guest opinion, the writer should be someone in the health care industry or insurance, i.e. someone who, in theory at least, would have some special expertise on the topic.
Another example is the local school budget. Residents of a school district certainly have views about the way their district is financed and spends their tax dollars. So they could write a 250-letter expressing them. However, a superintendent or finance officer of the district might be granted a guest opinion because that individual, presumably, would have more detailed expertise on the topic.
Sometimes the line is not exact and so we usually error on the side of fairness — in other words, we’ll let an individual write a guest opinion, even if they may not be quite the expert they appeared to be.

The problem we’ve faced, as I’ve mentioned, is that when people learn we have the guest opinion option, they immediately want to write a 600-word piece.
Most views on a specific topic can be expressed in 250 words or less. The 600-word opinions allow for more details to be presented but often extra details are not needed and quite frequently, they can make topics redundant.

In reference to letters to the editor that allow a reader to express an opinion, the old axiom “less is more” definitely applies in 99 percent of the cases. A 250-word letter to the editor is much better than trying to express the same views a 600-word guest opinion. The letter will get read more quickly and completely than the guest opinion and the bottom line, it normally gets a writer’s view across more accurately than a guest opinion.

The Oakland Press is proud of its policy of trying to run every letter to the editor that it receives, provided the correspondence meets the basic criteria.
This includes a letter being 250 words or less and not written in a libelous or vulgar manner.

Unfortunately, fulfilling that goal becomes difficult, if not impossible at certain times of the year, such as during election time.

When we get more letters than we can possibly publish on the Opinion Page, we do have one outlet — our website. Letters that we just can’t seem to get into the newspaper are uploaded to the website so that our readers’ opinions can be viewed in one fashion, or another. Usually, the website is the only alternative when space gets too tight. We realize most people would prefer to have their letters published but we believe that placing them on the web is a reasonable solution. It certainly is better than not publishing it at all.

Consequently, if you’ve submitted a letter and you don’t see it published in three or four week — hopefully sooner — then we encourage you to call us. We’ll track the letter down to make sure we received it and then can give you a status report on whether it is still pending for publication on the Opinion Page or if it has been placed online.

Many newspaper just pick and choose certain letters for publication and throw away the others they may receive.

The Oakland Press doesn’t do that. We respect our readers’ opinions and we pride ourselves on being a vehicle for them to express their views. Publishing the letters in the order that they are received usually works out. But times, as mentioned, if the volume gets too large, we have to go to plan B, which in this case is the web.

I’ve commented numerous times that The Oakland Press endorsement process is complicated. So, let’s go into some detail to give you further insight into what’s involved.

One of the first and most difficult actions is deciding in which races the newspaper should endorse a candidate. I won’t dwell on this because I’ve discussed it in the past but as a brief refresher, we try to not only select the most important races — for example, the governor’s race and the campaigns for state office — but also in those races that appear to be particularly close. There’s no guarantee but probably one of the closest races — at least one of the more heated — will be the battle between Rep. Gary Peters and challenger Rocky Raczkowski for the 9th District Congressional seat.

The next step is to schedule a time for the candidates to come in. Usually, we allocate a half hour to each candidate and bring them in separately, so they have the Editorial Board’s full attention. Scheduling is not necessarily difficult but it often is time consuming. You have to call a candidate or his representative. They have to get back to you with a possible time and date and then you have to keep going back and forth until a mutually convenient time is found for both the candidate and Editorial Board members. Setting up one appointment could take any where from five to 10 telephone calls. That may not seem like much but when you multiple that figure by the number of candidates you’re contacting, the total can get quite high.

During the interview, there are always a few basic questions to ask each candidate. Usually they run along the line of “why are you running for office” and “what do you believe are the most critical issues faced by the community?” Often, the answers will lead to other questions and so no two interviews are exactly the same.
After all of the candidate interviews are completed, members of the Editorial Board meet to compare notes. They decide on which candidates to endorse. The decision can be based on any number of criteria but generally the selection is of the person who the board believes would best serve the public. Obviously, we’re not always correct in our selections or the candidate we endorse doesn’t win. Well, that’s the way elections run.

Please remember that not all those endorsed have the unanimous backing of the board. Majority rules here as it does in the general election.
We try publish our endorsements over several weeks and at least two weeks before the election. This gives readers who desire some guidance a chance to look over the endorsements and decide if they agree or disagree.

Some things never change in the endorsement process. They are always time consuming. We don’t always select the person who wins the race and readers may not agree with our pick. But please remember, like many things in journalism, the endorsement process is a judgment call by the Editorial Board.

Well, it’s started.

We are having more than 200 candidates seeking local, state and national positions come into The Oakland Press over the next few weeks for an interview and to be video taped.

We’ve wasted no time after the long Labor Day holiday weekend, candidates began coming into the office today.

The information obtained will be put online and made available shortly through our website, www.theoaklandpress.com.

Scheduling and interviewing the candidates is a daunting task. Our main reporters will be doing profile videos on 30 to 40 candidates each.

This is something new for The Oakland Press. In the past we’ve always done profiles on the candidates but the video taping is new this year. Also, usually we don’t call in all of the candidates, opting, in many cases, to have the candidates submit written information on a form that we send to them.

Of course, there’s no guarantee that all of the candidates will agree to come into the office but each in the November election races that we’re covering will be offered that opportunity.

From the Opinion Page standpoint, an editorial board member will not be able to sit on all of the taping sessions, although we do plan to be present for some of the major races in our coverage area.

As in past years, we can’t endorse candidates in each race because, to be honest, there are just too many races and candidates. But we will try to do some endorsements, probably published in the latter part of October.

In my next blog, I’ll give you some of the behind the scenes logistics involved in doing endorsements. As readers, you see the final product — an endorsement article on the Opinion Page of The Oakland Press.

But there’s quite a bit of work involved.

Wouldn’t it be great if everything was either black and white, right and wrong or good and bad?

It certainly would make life simpler, but maybe not necessarily easier or more fun.

In reality, few things are either black or white, right or wrong, etc. There are myriad shades of gray, although some people believe some issues are black and white. But even here, people won’t always agree on what exactly is a black or white situation.

Most people would probably agree that murdering someone is wrong. Yet, sometimes killing can be justified if it’s in self-defense or in the defense of your family or your nation.

The debate could go on endlessly.

And that’s what we often have in reference to some letters to the editor. There’s an endless debate over what types of letters are appropriate to run and which ones cross some constantly changing line from opinion to just being insulting or offensive in some way.

A recently published letter calling the GOP the “Party of Hate” added fuel to this ongoing debate. Obviously, it was an opinion, just like calling Democrats “unpatriotic tax and spend advocates.” The phases can be offensive to some, a statement of fact to others and yet a third group of people would probably just shrug off both comments as being political rhetoric.

Was the letter appropriate to run? Some readers adamantly said “no” but others found the statement, in their opinion, true.

As a newspaper, we try to be fair and we don’t want to be insulting. The easy letters to reject are the ones that espouse prejudice and bigotry. They go far beyond the realm of opinion.

But in the example, the letter writer was listing issues that Republicans generally oppose. However, instead of saying they were against such issues, the writer said Republicans “hated” those issues.

It would be wonderful if all letters were written in a pure, non-offensive manner or in a disgusting, insulting fashion. It would be easy then to decide which ones to publish and which ones to toss in the waste basket.

But the line is often not clear and so we have to make — you guessed it — a judgment call. Was it the right call, some readers say “yes,” others say “no.”

We can’t second guess all of our readers, but don’t worry, we’ll keep trying.

Today (Wednesday, Sept. 1) the Editorial Board met with three members of the Detroit area Moslem community: Dr. Tariq Dimashqi, President of Muslim Unity Center in West Bloomfield Hills; Victor Begg, Chairman of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan; and Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations - Michigan (CAIR-MI).

The meeting was in response to the editorial on the proposed Islamic center/mosque for New York City as well as to discuss what has been termed “Islamophobia,” the apparent rising fear of and discrimination being shown toward people of the Islamic faith. Our editorial contended that although they have a right to construct the center on the site, which is a couple blocks from the site of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, out of respect for those killed in the attack, Islamic officials should choose another site.

The discussion lasted almost two hours and some valid points were brought up by the guests as well as members of the editorial board. No major solutions were created during the session but that really wasn’t the point. The visitors were given a chance to express their concerns and the open dialogue, which had already been established between The Oakland Press and local Islamic groups, was continued.

As I always stress, the Opinion Page is meant to be a forum for expressing opinions and to be fair, we always give individuals and groups a chance to respond to whatever is published on that page.

Obviously, the representatives didn’t agree with our editorial but at least they were offered a chance to explain their side.

No matter how you describe what being “fair” means, the best way for the Opinion Page to be fair is to always allow opposing views to be heard.