The Rogue Valley Times remains an evolving enterprise — this is, for instance, just the 65th Our View in our young history — and so it stands to reason that from time to time we need to take stock of how we approach what we do.

In terms of this Opinion page, that means evaluating the choices we make as an Editorial Board about what we will run online and in our print editions. And, just as importantly, what we won’t.

A pair of recent Letter to the Editor submissions — on vastly different topics, and written in vastly different tones — required us to discuss their relative merits, not just as to the opinions each expressed, but as to whether they were suitable for publication.

On one, the decision not to publish was easy. It was a letter exhibiting bias toward a minority population, punctuated with inaccurate and stereotypical descriptions, over an action taken by a public entity to honor those involved.

Hate speech, by intention or ignorance, might be protected legally — but that doesn’t require the Times to give it a forum to be disseminated. We always will come down on the side of those being attacked through bigotry and discrimination.

As many a parent has been known to say, “Take that kind of talk elsewhere.”

The other letter, however, presented quite a different issue — one for which we needed to come to a conclusion on how the Opinion page would handle an ongoing story that, granted, eventually will have an impact on the Rogue Valley and its residents.

It was the first of what we might rightly expect will be many letters regarding the 2024 presidential election; in this case, the letter writer presented a case why a prominent candidate was unworthy of receiving votes.

Pandora … meet Box.

The Rogue Valley Times strives to be a local newspaper and, to that end, the Opinion page has been dominated by letters, opinions and outside columns that speak to local, state or regional issues.

We have included letters and commentaries on “national” topics such as climate change, election integrity or LGBTQ+ issues, for instance, because these have a direct impact on the Rogue Valley.

Yes, might come the response, but isn’t who becomes president of local interest as well?

We can’t argue with that. Of course it does. But as anyone who has a keen interest in presidential politics must admit, the back-and-forth over candidates — particularly President Biden and former President Trump — has led to the sort of volatile and not always accurate debate that has turned much of the national media, and social media, into a vast wasteland.

So, this is where we’re drawing the line. Many of us at the Times worked at the previous local paper of record, and had firsthand knowledge of the flood of letters that came into the office citing the multitude of charges and counter-charges in the 2020 presidential race.

We have no desire to repeat that experience. Oregon itself — on a state, county and local level — will have its own election issues, and we’re looking forward to presenting a lively discussion among letter-writers about those.

As our newspaper grows, we hope by keeping our focus local in scope that our forum for reader opinions grows as well.