Department heads at your friendly local newspaper spent a hefty hunk of this morning debating - civilly, of course - the pros and cons of all those hyperlinks you're seeing in political stories. The keyword hyperlinks aren't so new. Interested parties purchased plenty of them in stories from last year's recall effort, as well as the primary election last spring.

The twist this time around came when one organization purchased hyperlinks to the names of candidates that organization does not support. For instance, Coeur d'Alene school board candidate Brent Regan's name was linked to a web page promoting his opponent in the May 21 race. Press managers butted heads - nicely - before arriving at the conclusion that this form of politicking crossed the line of fair play. So as I'm writing this, hyperlinks from certain candidates' names are being broken so promotional material for their opponents won't automatically appear on readers' screens.

There remains a host of more neutral keywords, like election, trustee, vote and so on, and those will remain one avenue of opportunity for paid advertising. Contact Mike Alexander, malexander@cdapress.com, for more info. For any other questions of an editorial nature, please feel free to share with me your thoughts and questions: mpatrick@cdapress.com – Mike Patrick, editor

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UPDATE: The Press just received this news release.

Keywords Not Meant as Malicious and Apology

Balance North Idaho purchased certain keywords months ago to use as hyperlinks during the current election. Words were chosen to provide the most exposure for the money and of course, candidate names were first on our list. At the time of reservation and the months that followed, the Coeur d’Alene Press never showed any resistance to the keyword choices.

The use of hyperlinks on the CdA Press website started during the recall last year when Recall CdA started using the hyperlinks to promote their cause. At the time, they used many different words to link to their website.

We felt this was a clever use of campaign funds and chose to ‘mimick’ their strategy. Hyperlinks were also used frequently during the May 2012 primaries, so the use of hyperlinks is not new in the political world or on the CdA Press website.

“We understand that Mr. Regan is not happy about the use of his name, and we apologize for any distress this has caused him,” said Eden Irgens, President.