The Education of a Reporter and Teachers' Salaries

When I began my journalism career at The New Haven Register back in 1972, my immediate boss, Don Anderson, a gruff, cigar-chomping-but-never-smoking old-line bureau chief with a crusty exterior but a soft heart, instilled in me several principles. First and foremost, no matter what a source tells you, there’s always a story to be found and retold in the paper. I learned that the hard way on my first assignment. 

I was to find out why a multi-unit housing development in Derby, Conn., had not been completed. After telling Don several times there was nothing to report, he suggested two alternatives. Either I could go back out and find the real story behind the delay in construction or I could pack up my desk and never come back. As if to emphasize he was not kidding about the latter option, he picked up my heavy Royal manual typewriter and flung it across the newsroom. Hardly anyone stopped what they were doing. Apparently he had done that before. 

He wasn’t finished with my “training.” He appeared ready to heave me out a third floor window. I wisely deferred to his experienced take on the respectability and credibility of developers following through on their real estate promises. I soon discovered the Derby project had been mothballed so the developer could pour more of his resources into a different project in nearby Oxford. 

Another of Don’s biases expressed itself in his disdain for teacher union contracts. Like too many of the residents of the Lower Naugatuck Valley—the mill towns of Ansonia, Derby, Seymour and Shelton—Don thought teachers were overpaid considering they “worked” just 180 days a year and then only from around 8 am to 3 pm, with two months off during the summer and assorted national and religious holidays the rest of the year. 

Perhaps he was relating their salaries to the paltry compensation The Register paid its reportorial staff. I don’t know what Don made, but two years later, when I became the bureau chief of West Haven, Bethany, Orange and Woodbridge, I earned just $200 a week. I was one of seven bureau chiefs on a staff of 100 reporters. Even in early 1970s incomes, Register salaries were low. You no doubt can understand why the Newspaper Guild won a unionization ballot in 1974. Our salaries were immediately frozen pending a contract agreement. More than two years later, some six months after I left The Register, a contract settlement raised a bureau chief's salary to close to $400 a week. 

I was reminded of Don’s antipathy toward teachers by the passing of a respected high school teacher described in my previous blog post and by a Facebook posting by a recent Meredith Menden about the value the public receives from educators. I’ve reprinted it for your edification (full disclosure—my sister Lee’s a retired elementary school teacher and brought Meredith’s commentary to my attention):

Teachers’ hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work nine or ten months a year! It’s time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do—babysit!

We can get that for less than minimum wage.

That’s right. Let’s give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and planning—that equals 6-1/2 hours).

So each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children. Now, how many students do they teach in a day...maybe 30? So that’s $19.50 x 30 = $585 a day.

However, remember, they only work 180 days a year!!! I am not going to pay them for any vacations.

LET’S SEE ...

That’s $585 X 180 = $105,300 per year. (Hold on! My calculator needs new batteries).

What about those special education teachers and the ones with Master’s degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an hour. That would be $8 X 6-1/2 hours X 30 children X 180 days = $280,800 per year.

Wait a minute—there’s something wrong here! There sure is!

The average teacher’s salary (nationwide) is $50,000.

$50,000/180 days = $277.77 per day / 30 students = $9.25 / 6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student—a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids!)

WHAT A DEAL!!!!

Too Much Information

Did you see the story last week about a treasure hunter who found 52,500 Roman coins while puttering around a field in Southwest England? Using a metal detector, David Crisp discovered a cache of third century coins worth an estimated $5 million. Here’s a link to one story about the amazing find: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1292990/Chef-Dave-Crisp-discovers-largest-hoard-Roman-coins-Somerset-field.html.

It’s not uncommon to see treasure hunters, young and old alike, wandering around public spaces, metal detector in hand, earphones propped atop their heads. They’re listening for the telltale ping of metal. When it comes, they dig with their trowels until the object is revealed. Usually it’s just a bottle top or some other bit of detritus. Occasionally it might be a ring. Or some coins. Sometimes the coins may be valuable.

When I was a bureau chief for The New Haven Register in the city of West Haven, Conn., some 34 years ago, I was driving around looking for an interesting Sunday feature when I came upon a treasure hunter on the city green. He was a quirky looking dude, just a little more presentable than a homeless man might appear. He was bent over his metal detector. It was a few minutes before he realized I was standing next to him.

After identifying myself and asking if he would be willing to talk about his hobby, I proceeded to find out he had been moderately successful at this enterprise, having released from the earth many rings, a necklace and bracelet or two, plus valuable coins. His treasure was worth close to a thousand dollars, he estimated. I concluded the interview by taking his picture and recording, as was the requirement of The Register for any article, his name, age and address.

You’ve probably guessed where this story is going.

Sure enough, two days after the article appeared, I noticed in the police blotter a stolen property report. The scavenger’s house had been burglarized. Gone was his treasure trove lovingly dug up over many years. If he hadn’t already lost it, also gone were his innocence and sense of trust in his fellow man.

I have few regrets about my years as a reporter. But I do regret adhering to the newspaper’s policy of printing addresses. Sometimes, too much information is a bad thing.