I was having lunch with an attorney this week, and she had done her homework on me.
All good attorneys do their homework and I suspect she’s a very good one.
So she looked at my Facebook page and Googled me. Plus she did some good ol’ fashioned legwork.
“I spoke to some of my conservative friends and they assured me you were a liberal.
“Then I spoke to some of my liberal friends and they assured me you were a conservative.”
What a conundrum, I thought to myself. But such is life as an editor.
Human beings, of course, want to believe their preconceived notions are accurate. So they pick through the pile of bits of information — much like you would pick through a pile of oranges — and only pick the stuff out that you like; stuff that supports your beliefs.
So she was here, in part, to make her own decision. Plus the Beach House Salad is pretty good.
Of particular interest to her was my view on public employees. Recently The Columbian has done a number of stories on public employees, specifically on what they are earning and how that compares to private employees.
And I’ve written a couple of columns related to it as well.
I told her — from my perspective — what we’ve reported and written on public employees is neither a conservative thing nor a liberal thing.
It’s simply a thing.
One of our main jobs as a newspaper is to bring information to readers. And it’s that information which allows readers to make informed decisions.
For example, when we told readers it cost taxpayers $20,000 to send Vancouver police officers to work a police memorial in Tacoma, that was information they deserved.
Was the money too little, too much or about right? Readers could decide.
The same thing is true when we reported public salaries.
Some firefighters make more than $110,000 a year when you include benefits. Police officers aren’t all that far behind.
Both have now given up cost-of-living increases (great) but we have wondered in print how many private employees even get cost-of-living increases.
“Here’s something to remember,” I said. “If we do our job right we will give a voice to the voiceless.”
Let’s see how this plays out when you look at public salaries. The government certainly has a powerful voice. Government officials are the ones who primarily sign off on everything a public employee gets.
And the public employee unions certainly have a powerful voice. The pay, the benefits, the retirement plan — it’s the kind of stuff most of us in the private sector can only dream about.
So who’s the voiceless in this process? Who isn’t sitting at the table?
Well that would be the folks paying the bills. The little guys. The guys who supply all the money. The taxpayers.
The government officials might argue that they are representing the taxpayers but I wonder how many out there would agree with that assessment.
So it’s back to the newspaper to try and represent the voiceless, the little guys.
So is this a conservative thing or a liberal thing?
To me, it’s neither.
There’s another view many newspaper types believe in as well: afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.
There may be a fair debate as to who is comfortable in this pay discussion. But we’d probably all agree who is afflicted. The taxpayers.
I wasn’t sure when our lunch was over if she was able to draw any conclusions. But not unlike the role of a newspaper, the info was provided. And I’d bet she’ll figure it out.
Lou Brancaccio is The Columbian’s editor. Reach him at 360-735-4505 or lou.brancaccio@columbian.com.
