Good journalism happens so often as a result of “cause and effect,” which is loosely defined as one or more things happening because of something else.

Just last week, The Newtown Bee’s own Editorial Ink Drops and one of its July 1 print features illustrated this process. In last week’s editorial, in part, we called on departing Board of Education member Rebekah Harriman to recuse herself from having anything to do with influencing which local Democrat might be nominated to take her place because Harriman was at the time of her school board resignation, the sitting Chair of the Newtown Democratic Town Committee.

This proposal on our part brought an immediate response from Harriman, who assured us that she was not involved in the recommendation process for her replacement. Harriman explained that the DTC’s candidate committee members were solely responsible for interviewing for the replacement, and were poised to make a recommendation to the full board.

This was good and important information for residents to know, regardless of whether they have a relationship with Harriman, feelings about the situation, students who are in the local public school system, or they couldn’t care less.

The second example of cause and effect this week came as a result of a feature about our beloved C.H. Booth Library, and its financial operations.

While the article that appeared in print was wrongly titled —which we realized too late — the resulting consultations we had with Legislative Council Chairman Jeff Capeci and colleagues Ryan Knapp, William DeRosa, and Tom Long, helped shed light on and remind us of a few facts that were either not provided by our sources or, frankly, missed by us in the editing process and deadline rush to print.

That report went through several revisions online at newtownbee.com, and is now rightly titled “Town Funding Freeze Causing Concerns For C.H. Booth Library.” Addressing the errors or omissions from the print version, it is a fact that the Legislative Council did not “cut” the Library budget this year as the original headline and lead paragraph stated.

The council, during its protracted and complicated budget deliberations, elected to hold the library’s budget flat, and simply did not grant the requested increase of $76,160.

The print edition also failed to note the Library, in 2020, applied for and received a Coronavirus-related PPP loan from the SBA of $172,600 to cover payroll, which Capeci pointed out was subsequently forgiven. At the same time, the library continued receiving its status quo funding from the municipality and its taxpayers, accounting for the bulk of its operating budget.

In the fiscal year that just closed June 30, Long — a volunteer race organizer — reminded us that the library took in another $40,000 in proceeds from its Thanksgiving Turkey Trot, and during budget deliberations, also maintained a fund balance of over $800,000, according to Knapp.

In each of these cases, and regardless of initial unintended errors or omissions, content in (or missing from) The Newtown Bee caused new and important information to emerge that we hope will help anyone interested better understand just two of the dozens of important events or happenings we report on every week, 52 weeks a year.

We apologize for the errors we make, and we remain committed to working harder to ensure our readers get all the facts they require to be more informed and engaged citizens of our community.