From time to time, a Beacon reader will call to complain — or even to cancel their subscription — because the newspaper has become too left-leaning … or too right-leaning.

We value these calls very highly. We make this newspaper for you, and what you think and feel about the job we’re doing is very important to us.

Barb Shepherd

But let’s clear the air about this idea that we favor one perspective or the other. A little history might help.

When The Beacon was created in 1992, our mission was to serve a community whose local newspaper had been absorbed by an East Volusia news organization that, at the time, was unabashedly left-leaning. Also at the time, West Volusia, in contrast, was generally more conservative.

In this atmosphere, we made it our mission to give a voice to everyone. Then, as now, we staff members had our own preferences and perspectives, of course, but those would take a back seat to the more important jobs a local newspaper could do for West Volusia: informing people, listening to people, exposing problems and exploring solutions, watching over and reporting on local government, educating voters about local elections, and connecting diverse elements of the community, among them.

Then, as now, the Beacon staff was politically diverse. It wasn’t necessary to make a binary choice, nor was it the path to the highest level of service we could provide to the community we aimed to serve.

That doesn’t mean we stand for nothing. It is our right and our duty to make a stand and communicate it.

We don’t stand for the left or the right, the straight or the gay, the white or the Black or the rainbow in between. We stand for the idea that all of us can rise above the very concept of dualism.

We stand for the idea that, together, we are a stronger community that can accomplish more good when we learn about each other and respect each other than we can accomplish when we embrace division.

Does that mean that, from time to time, you’ll read about a lifestyle or worldview you don’t approve of, or agree with? Yes, it does.

It’s all part of our mission to “empower, unite and strengthen our community” through shared knowledge — information and enrichment you can’t get in an echo chamber.

In recent years, we’ve emphasized giving a voice to those in our community who, for years, even for generations, didn’t have one. Eli Witek, now our editor, has been largely responsible for that emphasis, and it’s something we are proud of. It’s also probably something that, from time to time, might cause a conservative person to comment that The Beacon has become left-leaning.

We invite you to rise above the limitations of a binary choice.

Think of it as sitting down to the family dinner table where everyone is welcome, no matter how they voted in the last election. Where fairness, inclusion, respect, honesty, cooperation and, yes, even love, are more important than being “right.”

And pass the potatoes, will you? I’ll take mine with gravy, and you might not. That’s OK; individually we can, and must, make these choices. But there’s room for all of us at this table.

And we’re glad you’re here.

— Shepherd, one of The Beacon’s founders, now serves as the newspaper’s publisher.

Editor’s note: Send your letters to the editor to info@beacononlinenews.com.