Taking responsibility seems to be lost art

If you don’t like this editorial, we feel compelled to let you know—it’s not our fault, it’s someone else’s.
We say that tongue in cheek, of course, because we are fully aware there are people who won’t like this editorial, as there are people who likely find fault with a part of the newspaper every week. Such is life in the media, now more than ever, where if you write one single thing someone doesn’t like among the hundreds of thousands of words in each issue you are a rag unworthy of printing. Custer County shouldn’t have a newspaper because of that one thing you wrote in that one issue. That’s occasionaly the mindset of some individuals.
However, we take full responsibility for the content of this column, because we are on the ones writing it. Yes, you read that right. We take full responsibility. In a world where that is becoming less and less of a thing, we are still here to pledge that to you. If we get something wrong, which we do from time to time, you’ll find a correction, wherein we take responsibility and pledge to do better.
We believe the true hallmark of a leader is to take responsibility when an error is made. Take the recent flap over our federal government including a reporter in a text chain that outlined the government’s plans for an upcoming attack on Houthi rebels. That the U.S. is striking the Houthis is a good thing—they are a strong and growing threat to sea trade, the U.S. and some allies. That a random reporter was included in these texts, not so good. Had they fallen into the wrong hands, these messages seemingly could have been a security threat and put troops at risk.
Whether or not you want to say the texts had top secret information or not is not the point. The point is our government was careless enough to include someone in a group chat that clearly was not meant to be included. It was an error. It was a pretty big error. The best thing to have done in response is immediately take responsibility, apologize and vow to correct the mistake. Instead came the denial, the spin, the whataboutisms and the insulting of the journalist, who eventually released all the texts to prove he wasn’t lying about what he received. It was all so much more than what was needed. In this “I’m never wrong” day and age, however, it wasn’t a surprise at all this is the way things went.
It’s not just the government guilty of this. Lack of responsibility has become a societal issue. Criminals are coddled and aren’t forced to take responsibility. Teachers are leaving schools in droves because children aren’t forced to take responsibility. No matter how poorly they act, mom and dad race to the school to make sure everyone knows their child is actually an angel, and couldn’t possibly be at fault for being such a jerk.
Next time you make a mistake, nod, acknowledge the mistake and apologize. Ask how you can make things right. It’s the right thing to do, and usually makes things better. Becoming defensive and blaming the alignment of the moon and Jupiter the previous night gets us nowhere.
Yes, we take responsibility for this editorial and others to come. Just don’t ask who specifically wrote it. We’re not going to take that much responsibility.