Iowa paper prints salaries -- and some commentary

I missed the bailout. Please clarify.

 

Newspapers print contract details for athletes, some of which are supposed to be confidential. OK or not?

 

I missed the memo that mail subsidies (what percentage of newspapers use mail delivery?) and public notices are the primary means of income for the newspaper industry.

Newspapers also have printed the salaries of publishers, particularly for rival newspapers.

This fourth estate bullshit and the grandiose view of our job and accountability is doing more damage than good these days. We are an industry. Journalism is a hell of a lot more like entertainment than law enforcement.

 

I'm not using subsidies as the basis to my point. I am not suggesting newspapers should be forced to publish their own salary info. Newspaper editors and reporters love to go with the public has a "right to know," which is true, but newspapers only publishe info for all public employees because it gets easy page views. There is no "it's in the public interest" motive involved.

If a newspaper also publishes confidential details made by private parties regarding salaries or other business deals, it is hypocritical to suggest a newspaper's own salary info should be private.

 

Bullshit. It's something the public should know and something public officials should know can be put out there and should be afraid of it getting put out there. Otherwise, public officials can sneak in high salaries for unqualified people for underhanded reasons. Sure it happens in some places still, but the fact it can be uncovered keeps a lot of crap from happening that otherwise would.

There are still papers and staffs out there that are worried about being watchdogs. Page views are a side effect but not the primary reason for those places.

As for the details of contracts between private entities, like athletes and teams, as long as the teams are playing in venues financed with public money, I can understand an argument for it. But to suggest there is no public interest in publishing salaries paid by taxpayers is blind.