1:10 pm, Feb. 19, 2021 Attacking columnists for having an opinion Thumbs Down: Like other newspapers across the country, the Echo Press prints columns – personal viewpoints about a wide variety of topics that appear on our Opinion page. We have a history column, an “In the Know” rotation of columns from community leaders, “Our Turn” columns written by Echo Press editorial staff, and on occasion, columns from newspapers that are part of our parent company, Forum Communications, which most often appear only online. As with letters to the editor, columns do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of the Echo Press. They're opinion pieces. Our Facebook readers seem to forget that and often criticize the paper for printing such “biased” views. They don’t realize there's a huge difference between a news story and a personal column. Instead of bashing away at the paper for simply printing someone’s viewpoints, there are many other options: Make a comment on Facebook that contains some substantive thought other than attacking the writer. Write a letter to the editor that expresses your own views on the topic. Or lastly, if all you're going to do is lash out the writer after only seeing the headline, don’t bother to join the debate. That would be a shame though. You may learn something: There are other people out there with thoughts that don’t match your own.