In the wake of Lycoming County Judge Nancy Butts losing a retention vote to continue to serve as president judge, our editorial board must wonder the role an unfortunately distorted view of crime and public safety in our region may have played in voters’ decisions.

Are our streets safe? Is sensationalized coverage of crime, often in counties a far stretch from Lycoming County and with the most gruesome details magnified to serve as “click bait,” leaving voters with unfounded fears that predators lurk around every corner?

A duty to accuracy and parity have always motivated the decisions we make about how and when to cover allegations of crimes — our decisions to attribute allegations to the police complaints filed to our judicial system and upon which prosecutors are choosing to file charges and our decisions to try to treat allegations against one person the same as we treat similar allegations against anyone else.

Our goal is to share as comprehensive and fair picture of criminal justice and public safety as we can.

Unfortunately some of our competitors — sometimes news outlets almost entirely based on social media and sometimes larger — make different decisions. We must wonder, again, the degree to which the public’s fears are modeled on a perspective of public safety molded by cherry-picking the most lurid crimes from across more than a dozen counties and reporting that focuses on the most easily sensationalized aspects.

We can only hope that voters make informed decisions — and we worry “click bait” distortions of the state of crime and public safety in our region are impeding them from making such decisions.