NOREEN: Please don't shoot the messenger
When you don’t like the message you can always shoot the messenger.
Many city employees are angry with The Gazette because it published the list of employees’ names with the amount of their salaries.
“You demagogues at the Gazette need to be sued for your destructive behavior,” wrote one anonymous contributor.
“Freedom Communications should fire all individuals who perpetrated this unethical stunt,” wrote another.
What was destroyed? What was unethical?
Colorado Springs will most likely have to make big budget cuts for 2010. There will be no way to balance the budget without layoffs, pay cuts, or perhaps both.
When City Councilman Tom Gallagher raised the issue of pay cuts as part of the solution, a controversy erupted about whether city workers are overpaid or underpaid. Noting that they have had wages frozen and there have been layoffs, many city employees have argued they are underpaid.
The Gazette decided to run names and salary information provided by the city to remove any doubt about what the workers are paid and to let readers decide for themselves. When there is a debate over public policy it is the paper’s role to shed as much light as possible.
This made many of the city workers angry. But why?
If they are underpaid, wouldn’t it be to their advantage to publish the list? That way, everyone could see the obvious injustice and of course, we’d all agree that pay cuts should not be a part of the budget solution.
Another online commenter wrote, “What gives the Gazette or anyone the right to publish actual names and salaries of city employees?”
The answer is “the Colorado open records law.”
Having salary information made public is part of the cost of doing business for all public employees. Under various government records regulations, some CEOs in the private sector also have their salary information reported in the business sections. Professional athletes’ salaries are routinely reported.
Reporting salary information is a matter of routine in the newspaper business.
Even so, one writer said, “Your pathetic reporting does not consider anyone but yourselves and how you can sell papers without thinking about what you are publishing and how it may affect someone.”
We’re guilty of wanting to sell papers, but consider: We’ve had furloughs, a pay cut and more than our share of layoffs at The Gazette in the last couple of years. If you think we enjoy the human misery wrought by that, or that we have an appetite to see more, you’re wrong.
We’re just serious about our watchdog role, serious about shining a light on public policy debates. Inevitably, someone isn’t going to like the glare.
But shooting the messenger won’t help.
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On my blog today, see where other states' employees' salary information is routinely posted
gazette.com/blogs/barrysblog
