Letters to the editor and guest columns have always been one of my favorite elements of our newspapers. For me, the forum where area residents can submit their views regarding a range of subjects gives us all a doorway, if you will, into our individual communities.

The letters to the editor feature has also always been sort of a listening post, a way to gauge sentiments in a given town or a newspaper’s circulation area.

Not that long ago, a robust letter to the editor/guest column forum was another way for journalists to keep tabs on the issues that impact the daily lives of our readers. The feature was a way to keep our finger on the pulse of the community.

Yet over the past five years or so the tenor of the voices on the opinion page has shifted — sometimes subtly, often in more profound ways.

Instead of a forum where people can present their views on a variety of subjects, the feature has often mirrored the national political conversation. That’s fine — we want all views to be presented in our opinion pages — up to a point. Mimicking the vitriol of our national political conversation doesn’t move anything ahead.

Yet everyone has a right to free speech and we try to honor that as much as possible.

But the opinion page isn’t really a place for name-calling or other personal attacks. The aim of the forum is to present well-thought-out ideas in a civil manner. Our national political conversation has, I fear, an atmosphere where screaming insults is the coin of the realm. That’s both unfortunate and frustrating.

The procedure we try to adhere to for letters to the editor and guest columns — admittedly, sometimes we’re better at this than others — follows a consistent path: each submission is initially reviewed by an editor, who gives the submissions a read and then loads them into our content management system for publication.

While we retain the right to edit submissions for clarity and correct grammatical, spelling and structural errors, we do not alter the expressed opinions. Any necessary adjustments are limited to seeking clarification or suggesting alternative phrasing, ensuring the preservation of the writer’s original viewpoints.

Concerning the content we try to refrain from publishing in columns and letters, we exclude anything submitted anonymously, content featuring offensive personal attacks and material that treats conspiracy theories as accepted truths or includes specific unverifiable accusations. Unfortunately, an editor is not going to do a line-for-line fact-check of each column or letter, making it imperative to avoid unfounded allegations or reference to baseless conspiracy theories circulating on social media.

We want input from readers. We seek those who want to participate in our daily or weekly community conversation through letters to the editor.

What we are not seeking is letters that are full of personal attacks and insults. We not only don’t seek such nonsense but we probably won’t publish such letters.

Civil discourse in America is becoming an endangered species. We’re not going to participate in the destruction of a key pillar of our democracy.

So please, continue to write letters to the editor and guest columns. But keep it clean, absent of insults and relevant.

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As always, if you have comments or questions about the Hermiston Herald, or want to pass along a story idea, send me an email at this address: acutler@eomediagroup.com.

Finally, let me take this opportunity to once again thank the Hermiston Herald subscribers: We simply would be unable to do this vital work without your support.

Andrew Cutler is the publisher of the Hermiston Herald.