Join the "Healthcare NOT Warfare" campaign!
PDA 2006 Election Video
» 56K modem
» broadband
Stop Funding War Video
» All
formats
Click here for the Congressional Schedule
"I advise and enjoin those who direct the paper in the tomorrows never to advocate any cause for personal profit or preferment. I would wish it always to be 'the tocsin' and to devote itself to the policies of equality and justice to the underprivileged. If the paper should at any time be the voice of self-interest or become the spokesman of privilege or selfishness it would be untrue to its history."
--From the will of Josephus Daniels, Editor and Publisher of the Raleigh News and Observer 1894-1948
In a span of over thirty years, my father worked under several newspaper editors, one being Ralph McGill of the Atlanta Constitution-Journal (then simply called the Constitution). The daily on which my father worked most of his life, however, included a managing editor who had worked on the Philadelphia Inquirer. Mel Stone, unlike his predecessor--who frequently came through the doorway at an angle--would always give it to you straight.
What does any of this have to do with Josephus Daniels?
After everything that has appeared on the opinion pages of the Chapel Hill press for nearly a year, the Raleigh News and Observer has had plenty of time to "observe." It's not every day that someone on public pay receives a 41 percent pay raise and has the press present it to the public as 7.2 percent. Yes. I know. The coverage provided by the News and Observer was based on a news release from UNC reporting action by the UNC Board of Governors ... meaning what? Journalists don't ask questions or look at the accuracy of what they print?
Whether or not UNC's board of Governors wants to approve 41 percent pay raises for public employees - at $200,970 a pop - is not the issue here. What is at issue here is whether or not the News and Observer is allowing itself to be used to help report false statistics to the public. And it's not just a case that UNC's "accounting is interesting," as N&O staff writer Jane Stancill put it in an e-mail before she realized what had transpired and then asked Chapel Hill resident Jay Davis, "Would you be willing to go on record for a story?" A story, by the way, that was apparently killed by those further up the N&O's chain of being.
I'm sure Ms Stancill now realizes the reason stories involving the pay raises for top UNC officials are phrased the way they are. Speaking truth to power can be a painful experience, if it means your job. But how can the public verify facts if details that would normally cause public outcry are framed in such a way that pay raise stories about public service leaders like Dr. William Roper of UNC Hospitals only seem upfront? So much for transparency. And what of not reporting Roper's conflict of interest as a member of the board of Medco Health Solutions? Nothing there, either.
Bev Perdue may accuse Pat McCrory of intending to raise the pay of politicians--and this is not to say that the Senior Vice President and Executive Editor of the Raleigh News and Observer endorses Pat McCrory for Governor--but is it fair to say that only Republicans "work the system" to provide pay raises for public officials at the top? Objectivity? Are Republicans any worse than Democrats when it involves, as Jane Stancill put it in one of her e-mails to Davis, "spinning" it?
Can one put details in context (some call this reporting the facts) in order to keep the public informed while also having someone like Phil Carlton as a father in law? Maybe. But it creates problems when news stories are spun to make 41 percent pay raises appear as if they are "7.2" percent, as was the case with Roper. And it makes matters worse when the amount of the raise is not disclosed as a single dollar amount, especially when someone like UNC President Erskine Bowles, a former candidate for the U.S. Senate, is part of the story. And no, updateswhich perform the type of accounting gymnastics that deserve a gold medal for continuing to mislead the public by using selected figures in a manner to support a false report don't help (see "Bowles: Chancellors' raises will help state," N&O, Oct. 16). The facts cannot be refuted. The $200,970 difference--which remained unreported as a total dollar amount--between $489,030 and $690,000 (Roper's '07 base pay, cited only in older news stories, and his new base for '08) was an increase of 41 and not "7.2" percent.
Unlike the claim he made in "Edwards went for big time" (N&O, Aug. 17, 2008), John Drescher cannot say that no one returned his call for this story. Likewise, he didn't have to pay for it. If an 88 percent pay increase for the governor's wife can be reported accurately on Sept. 9, 2008 ("Mary Easley's pay would be in top 3%"), why could not the N&O report the facts straight after a column ("Public seeks truth from UNC Administration concerning Dr. Roper's 41 percent pay raise") was laid in Drescher's lap by e-mail on Sept. 25, 2007?
If the News and Observer (a McClatchy owned paper) is to survive the ever increasing challenge and pressures faced by traditional newspapers--the economic drain created by the advent of the internet--it will not do so by continuing to ignore the integrity and purpose of its founder.
John Drescher can stage complaints about the corruption of Governor Easley's administration all he wants ("Gov. Easley's press officers deter us from digging for you," N&O, 8/3/08). In the case of accurately reporting all the facts of pay raises for officials at UNC, I believe Mr. Drescher and his paper are guilty of the sin of intentional omission.
John Rhodes is a writer who lives in Efland.
PDA Chapter News RSS Feed