There was an interesting juxtaposition of stories on the front page of our Thursday edition this week.

A story at the top of the right-hand column followed up on the news that broke Tuesday night of a tentative agreement involving the Cayuga Indian Nation land claim. As part of that proposed deal, the nation would be able to build a full-scale casino somewhere in New York. The list of possible locations includes Cayuga County, where casinos deals have been pitched off and on for a few years.

Directly below that story was an article on an event held Wednesday night in Auburn on gambling addictions. “When the Chips are Down: Recognizing and Addressing Gambling Addiction” featured education specialist Stephen Capozzi of the Finger Lakes Council on Alcoholism and Other Addictions.

The gambling addiction program had been on the schedule for a while. We certainly had circled it as interesting community event to cover.

We hadn't planned, however, for the land claim settlement news to break. That took us by surprise, as I'm sure it did many of our readers.

When planning the Thursday paper, we knew the land claim story - including the casino aspect - needed to be included. The story in Wednesday's paper had few details or reaction from local officials. More reporting was needed.

We also felt it was important to be at the gambling addictions event, held at the Auburn Public Theater. Even if there were no casinos possibly on the horizon for this area, gambling in all forms is an important issue to discuss. That was the goal of the event, and covering it seemed like a responsible thing to do.

While the two stories - the land claim settlement and the gambling addictions program - were not directly related, a reader of one might be interested in the other. It made sense, from that standpoint, to have both on the front page.

But we did get some unpleasant feedback.

One reader said it was disgraceful to publish the gambling addiction event story on the same day we ran something about another potential casino in the area. Such a choice, they argued, shows The Citizen's bias against the casino.

I understand why someone might have such a reaction, especially because we have opposed casinos for this area on our opinion page. But we do our best to separate our news coverage from what appears on A4. That's why the reporters and photographers who collect the news don't have input on what stances the paper takes in its editorials.

Ultimately, we covered both stories because they were newsworthy and they both happened at the same time. They both appeared on A1 because we felt they were important enough to be there.

Executive editor Jeremy Boyer's columns run Saturdays in

The Citizen and he can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 231 or jeremy.boyer@lee.net