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- YVN begins to put a "face" on government
- News comes in several flavors
- SUNNYSIDE (6-15-99)--Many kinds of news hit the street daily, but we're going to discuss just two kinds here.
One is the kind that just breaks--like a brand new fire, burglary, murder, mayhem, scandal or meeting. A reporter wants to stay on top if it. He wants to get it, write it right, and get it published before the other boys and girls do.
The other kind of "news" is the kind that's been under our collective nose all along. It's the kind of news to which few ordinarily feel the urge to call attention.
- Such as: Who invented the spoon and when? What did a loaf of bread cost in 1941? When did families begin to need both man and wife working just to make ends meet--and why? Who ARE local IRS spooks? How do local government-employee salaries and fringe benefits compare to those of comparable workers in the private sector? Stuff like that.
Real news junkies can appreciate "wow!-that's-news-to-me!" information as much as the other stuff.
Therefore, in addition to covering meetings and police reports, the YVN has begun something probably no other newspaper has accomplished before in the Yakima Valley.
We have begun a project to name every local, county, state and federal official--elected and employed--who lives or works in Yakima county, reveal his department, his position, his salary, and what it is we taxpayers are paying him or her to do.
- How do our government servants live? Do they live better than we? If so, who then is the master, and who is the servant?
- The process of finding out should gradually bring into focus the real "face" of government operations in Yakima County.
We want to pull the tinfoil off the goldfish bowl. We want to see who government is, and what government is doing in our names. We want no more defacto "anonymous" government officials working "incognito".
We want to know how county locals coordinate with feds and staters to help them do their thing "on our behalf". Our focus is to name names, not kick butt. Our minds are open. As far as we've heard, this is still a free society, with a government of, by, and for the people.
It's a project Yakima Valley News is just beginning. It's time consuming. Once it's complete, however, it should make some things clearer to the average news junkie than they were before. We hope.
For a gander at what we've so far completed--as we've scratched the surface to provide this second kind of "news"--press on the little square q.
- --LA