Times Gives Free Editorial Space to Mayor

On May 13, what will be a regular monthly column by Mayor Dan Coody made its debut in the Northwest Arkansas Times.

Many newspapers publish occasional columns by office holders on particular topics, but giving the mayor a monthly soapbox sounds more like something a small weekly newspaper would do to fill space.

Small newspapers frequently publish canned columns from members of Congress and the state Legislature, but the columns are little more than self-serving PR pieces. Daily newspapers usually avoid the practice of giving free editorial space to elected officials on a regular basis.

Inevitably, such a move will serve as a forum for Coody to tell us what a good job he is doing.

We can’t help wondering if the Times is still apologizing to Coody for a 1992 editorial that Coody claimed was libelous. Coody, who was a candidate for mayor in 1992, sued over the editorial, won, then lost an appeal of the case at the state level. Since then, the Times has apologized to Coody in an editorial.

After all, the Times didn’t give former Mayor Fred Hanna his own column, and we can only image what sort of outcry there would have been if it had. Hanna used a more appropriate venue to express his opinions— the city-operated Government Access Channel on television, which aired his interview show called “City Talk.”