Siobhán Brett is the opinion editor at the Maine Trust for Local News. This is an abridged version of last week’s subscriber-only Maine Trust Insider newsletter.

My mom and dad are Irish, from County Kilkenny, and both grew up not far from a very small family-run convenience store named News and Chews. As the name suggests, it specialized in newspapers, magazines, candy and other things to eat. I’m relieved to find it’s still in business.

The last time I stopped in for a 99 (an Irish name for vanilla soft-serve in a plain cone with a Cadbury Flake driven into the side), a couple of contractors in hi-viz vests were eating plates of dinner on a folding table off to the side of the shop. In this sublime respect, it’s like a lot of the older, jack-of-all-trades gas stations and groceries dotted around Maine.

Where was I?

The rhyming headline above relates to my job, running the Maine Trust for Local News’ opinion desk, and the very hard border that is carefully observed between news (produced by my industrious colleagues in politics, sports, business, environment, the arts and more) and “views,” here a pithy catch-all for the work of the opinion desk: letters to the editor, op-eds and regular columns, all derived from a wide variety of contributors.

Some readers have expressed alarm at my more freewheeling tone of voice and — although I really don’t feel myself to have been particularly vocal on any subjects — what has occasionally been deemed “bias.”

Many of you will recall that my predecessor in this role, Greg Kesich, wrote a vibrant column every Sunday. Although I haven’t been able to manage my time or attention the same way, I have kicked in the occasional column on this (one of Graham Platner’s earliest rallies) or that (how Portland drivers simply should not be trusted at the four-way stop). Unlike news reporters and news editors, the work of an opinion journalist calls for a point of view. In fact, the job description mandates it.

That blessing allows journalists in my position to express a point of view, be it here, in an occasional column, on a podcast, on Tw*tter or Instagram and during spirited meetings with the editorial board (myself, assistant editor Scott Paida, publisher Stefanie Manning and columnists Leslie Bridgers, Steve Collins and Travis Lazarczyk) which can result in unambiguous editorial board positions like that of July 19: “Susan Collins and the $70 billion mistake.”

Our opinion desk, responsible for shepherding into publication between 40 and 50 letters every week on top of about 25 column-length opinions (an eye-watering volume of copy that reveals us to be blessed with an engaged and productive readership), does not liaise with the news side of the building — at all.

As you form your own points of view, myself and my opinion and columnist colleagues form theirs and articulate them as part of their work. My professional commitment to the reader relates not, then, to my leanings and how much or little I say about them, but to the opinion section: that it will be run with open arms and that we’ll take steps to publish a mix of perspectives that, on its best days, approaches an accurate reflection of the world around us.

To that end, I’ll make my usual appeal for “views” on news, chews or anything else. I’m at [email protected]. Our letters form is here. And our guidelines for op-eds are here.

P.S. When I started this job four years ago, I received a couple of copies of “Outrage, Passion & Uncommon Sense,” a compilation of editorial board positions carried by American newspapers over the years. Crystallizes things.