Fair and balanced?

Here in the patch, we are starting a drive to collect old telephone books to donate to the Herald-Standard. That way, its reporters would have no excuse for not calling and including all sides in a news story.

The impetus for our altruism? Monday's story titled, "Mining operations near historic church resume without county authorization." It detailed how a company operating a strip mine near the Laurel Hill Presbyterian Church and cemetery in Dunbar Township has revived that work, even though the Fayette County Zoning Hearing Board still has not granted it the required special exception permit to conduct such activity.

In order of appearance, here are the sources quoted in Monday's story regarding the resumption of strip mining: Nathanael Parker, the attorney for the strip mining company.

That's it. A grand total of one source, who predictably poo-pooed the situation. "They can't leave a strip cut like that. DEP (the Department of Environmental Protection) sould have cited us. We have a situation here," said Parker.

Thus, the public is left with the impression that this poor little strip mining company had no choice but to resume its illegal activity, lest a big state agency come down hard. But is that true?

A simple phone call to the DEP could have verified or debunked Parker's explanation. Does the DEP have the ability to trump local zoning laws? If so, did it order that this be done in this instance? Or is Parker just dishing out some BS?

A second phone call should have been made to the Fayette County Zoning Office, which is charged with enforcing the county's zoning laws. The question to ask them would be, "Can or should this company be investiated or fined by your office for operating without the required special exception permit?"

A third phone call, for any news operation seeking to be fair and balanced, should have gone out to someone affiliated with the Laurel Hill Prwesbyterian Church. As the other side in this controversy, one would think that their perspective would be vital.

In a prior story on May 8, the Herald-Standard quoted these pro-church sources: the Rev. Peter Malik, church member Karen Babyak of Perryopolis, church member Tom Fosbrink and church member Alberta Herber. It took us all of three second to find this story on the Internet. http://www.heraldstandard.com/news/local_news/church-members-voice-concerns-to-dep-about-blasting/article_3da46709-2ff2-5384-a7b0-72d2abc72834.html?photo=1

It took another three seconds to find the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's story on the same public hearing. That story identifies and quotes the church's attorney, Thomas Earhart.

If you are going to call the company's attorney for comment on a story, shouldn't you also call the church's attorney for his side? That seems pretty fundamental to us.

But even if we didn't feel that way, at least one person of significance says he does. Herald-Standard editor Mark O'Keefe informed the reading world, in a Dec. 5, 2010 column, that, "Our aim is to give all sides a fair airing of their views."

We will let you judge whether that happened with Monday's story.