Maine Public Broadcasting and the Sun Journal have different missions, audiences.

As one of the two major news organizations in Lewiston, the Maine Public Broadcasting Network has always enjoyed a close working relationship with one of Maine’s finest newspapers, the Sun Journal. Thus it was particularly painful to read a column published Friday, Aug. 8 which uncharacteristically attacked MPBN for comments made by a volunteer during one of our fundraising drives.

In the column (“MPBN repeating news, not covering it”) Executive Editor Rex Rhoades describes how he “gagged on his tea and toast” when hearing someone on our recent pledge drive talking about how newspapers are laying off staff and cutting back on community news. While layoffs may not be a reality at this publication, they have indeed happened at the Portland Press Herald, the Bangor Daily News, the Brunswick Times Record, the Kennebec Journal and the Morning Sentinel. Few doubt the challenges that face this important industry. At MPBN we have been fortunate not to have had to layoff any news reporters. In fact, we’ve actually shifted some staff to news and public affairs on television and on the Web.

These are difficult times for all of us in the news business and we all need each other. That is what I believe our announcers were trying to convey during our recent fundraising drive, that journalism is something we all value and we want more of, not less. The number of daily newspaper reporters covering of the State House has dwindled, for example and we are proud that we cover the State House with a full-time radio reporter based in Augusta.

To be clear, MPBN has no desire to compete with the Sun Journal, or any other daily or weekly newspaper, covering what is termed “local, local news.” We depend upon newspapers to report on city council meetings and the local school board. And you’re correct: we generally don’t cover car accidents and we don’t stand in the rain at local baseball games unless our friends and neighbors are playing in them.

But our reporters do occasionally get wet, literally, such as when Susan Sharon drives up to Fort Kent to do a series of reports on flooding and evacuations, or hikes into the woods near Greenville and rolls up her pants to forge across a swollen river for an enterprising story about an old growth forest slated for harvesting; or falls out of a canoe, recorder in hand, into the Penobscot River while on the campaign trail of a congressional candidate. Essentially, our coverage focuses on issues of statewide significance.

We’ve had reporters spend the night in a homeless shelter, ride around collecting garbage with trash haulers, visit migrant workers in the middle of the night and have lunch with the Shakers. We sent a reporter to New Orleans for a week to follow a group of Rumford high school students who volunteered to spend their spring vacation rebuilding homes after Hurricane Katrina. When the poisonings in New Sweden happened, our reporter was up there for nearly 10 days.

We have had exhaustive coverage of the issues surrounding the Androscoggin River – coverage that was recognized nationally for its quality. On July 25, MPBN’s A.J. Higgins broke the story about two top Democrats being canned by the state party because of their support for Herbert Hoffman. It got picked up by the Associated Press and was probably repeated in your own paper. We’re the only station that still has a weekly, statewide, half-hour public affairs show on television. And in a few weeks we’ll be sending a reporter – the only Maine news outlet (print or broadcast) to do so, to the best of our knowledge – to cover both the Democratic and Republican national conventions from a Maine angle. We could go on and on.

Like your own newspaper, MPBN does subscribe to the Associated Press and like you we do include stories that are provided by the wire service. But please recognize what we deliver to the state of Maine as a whole, and that our respective organizations have entirely different missions and audiences. We accept that your paper covers local news in more depth than we do. But please also recognize that we’re enterprising and covering stories of local and statewide interest on a regular basis as well.

David Morse is vice president for advancement and New Media for the Maine Public Broadcasting Network.