“Ready, shoot, aim” is not a responsible or ethical mantra for running an editorial board. This is something I learned in Journalism 101, but must have slipped off the radar of Monadnock Ledger-Transcript editor Bill Fonda when he penned his editorial on April 4 calling for Nancy Clark and Richard Smeeth to recuse themselves from the New Ipswich Planning Board.

Had Fonda done some basic research and contacted the individuals he decided to call out by name, publicly bringing into question their ethics by implication, he would have learned Smeeth had already recused in January and Clark had submitted her resignation due to a professional conflict well ahead of the publication date of Fonda’s screed. This omission of easily known facts is sloppy journalism at best and yellow journalism at worst.

As a current subscriber of the Ledger-Transcript, I call on Fonda to show us his ethics, as Smeeth and Clark have already done, and publish a full retraction and apology. I also call on Fonda to apply his heightened standards for recusal and concern for possible appeals, as he did for Smeeth and Clark, to remaining members of the Planning Board who have previously ruled in favor of the Silver Scone application at different levels of municipal government and publicly call for them to “step aside” as it is obvious from their prior decisions and involvement in the matter they are no longer impartial.

Colin P. Carroll

New Ipswich

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