From Ted K. Cox, editor/publisher of the Garrard Central Record —

The Garrard Central Record, a newspaper in Garrard County, was recently criticized by its inclusion in an article in the Advocate Messenger entitled, “Hashtag Stigma: Addiction experts warn against the trend of using humor in reporting drug arrests.”

We at the Central Record took issue with the inclusion of one of our headlines in that article for several reasons, the first and foremost being that the title of our article was never intended to be “humorous” and we certainly weren’t laughing when we published it.

The title in question, “Might As Well Face It, He’s Addicted To Love” was one we saw as heartwarming in describing a story of humanity rare to find in arrest reports; dealing with a man’s feelings that were so deep that he would attempt to assault an officer in order to be taken to jail to care for his girlfriend who was already incarcerated.

We can take no responsibility that the author of the article published by the Advocate, or its editor and publisher found humor in a headline where we found heart.

Additionally, only a headline from the Central Record, a newspaper not owned by Bluegrass Newsmedia, was brought into question, while there were no mentions of any articles through the years that could have been similarly misinterpreted from any of Bluegrass Newsmedia’s area newspapers, including The Advocate-Messenger, Lincoln Interior Journal, Jessamine Journal or The Winchester Sun.

We feel that this rush to judgment and it’s allowance to go on to print says more about your publication, than the misinterpretation of the intent of a headline by one of your reporters says about ours.

Furthermore, we feel it’s not the place of The Advocate-Messenger to make any judgment calls on whether a headline published in the Garrard Central Record is good, bad, humorous, dry or otherwise.