Page 4 - Dinuba Sentinel 5-31-18 E-edition

Opinion
Fred Hall - Publisher
In My Opinion
Advocacy journalism is
an oxymoron
For any of you readers south of Fresno.
who regularly—or even
occasionally—visit this column, it's been abundantly clear over the years that I consider advocacy journalism
an oxymoron. Journalism is reporting on the facts as they occurred while advocacy is public relations which is designed, by nature, to be opinion forming. This profession of journalism has, in recent years, taken a dark
turn into an area where one is often challenged to determine the dividing line between facts and embellishing hype!
A perfect example of advocacy journalism would be an article in one of the area papers about what was essentially a non-story. The only apparent motive was the continued bashing of Devin Nunes. First of
all because he is a Republican—an elected Republican is indeed rare in California--and secondly because he has been supportive of our President. “Resisters” can't tolerate those people!
When one takes a civil lawsuit, which was not even filed in this area and is far from current in nature, and attempts
to place the blame of malfeasance of company management at the feet of one of the company's stockholders
it doesn't pass the “smell test.” Apparently the Senator has a minority stake in a Bay Area company where sexual shenanigans occurred aboard
a fund raising cruise and an innocent employee of the company was exposed to harassment.
From all empirical evidence Senator Nunes was not on board, not a participant and was unaware of such an occurrence. The story was juicy
and replete in detail, appealing to the lascivious nature of those with any
sort of perversion. The story was old, unrelated to anyone from this area and, in my opinion unnecessary. In short the entire sorry episode was a non- story.
Many of us own stock in companies that, from time to time, are involved in wrong doing or involved in some accident and the story never places the blame on individual stockholders.
Following closely on the heels of that “late-breaking” news was full coverage of three billboards on Highway 99—just
Guest Column
Big pay gaps are bad M for business
the biggest manufacturers of income inequality, too.
Last year, the Barbie doll manufacturer paid its CEO nearly 5,000 times as much as its median worker.
This stunning revelation is the result of a new regulation that requires U.S. publicly held corporations to report their CEO-worker pay ratios to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Mattel’s gap is the widest reported so far. But most other big U.S. companies also have staggering divides. According to a new report by the staff of Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison, the first 225 large corporations to release their numbers had pay ratios averaging 339 to 1.
“This immense inequality is a crisis for our economy and our democracy,” said Ellison, a longtime advocate of pay gap disclosure.
What’s good for these CEOs, however, is actually bad for business.
A CNBC analysis of the new pay ratio data, for example, suggests that companies with large pay disparities have lower profits per employee.
Why might that be? According to a recent study by a Harvard Business professor, companies tend to perform poorly if workers feel they’re not paid fairly. The study’s author said workers who feel that way are likely to lack motivation and even quit their jobs.
It’s not hard to understand how it could put a damper on your morale to be working hard and struggling to get by while your boss is being rewarded hundreds — or even thousands — of times more than you on payday.
Doug Smith, a former partner at the big McKinsey management consulting firm, argues that the economic costs of huge pay gaps go far beyond the problems of low employee morale and high turnover.
to all,” Smith says, “these unethical pay practices spread outsourcing, offshoring,
Sarah Anderson
of good-paying permanent jobs with temporary, precarious employment.”
There’s a growing movement to use the new pay ratio data to encourage corporations to narrow their gaps. Portland, Oregon will soon become the first city to impose a tax penalty on companies with pay gaps above 100
to 1.
Charlie Hales, Portland’s mayor
when the law was passed in late 2016, argued that it made good business sense to encourage narrower gaps.
In a former job at an employee- owned engineering firm, Hales had seen firsthand how a small pay ratio boosted the bottom line. “Everyone worked a little harder because your success was my success,” Hales said. “And that egalitarian culture led to a strong work ethic that drove the corporation to success.”
With the new pay ratio data now coming out, lawmakers in six states
— California, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Rhode Island — are considering Portland- style pay ratio taxes.
Narrowing the divides within U.S. corporations may not automatically leave us all whistling away while we work. But we’ll all pay a price if we keep fiddling while extreme inequality burns down our economy.
Sarah Anderson directs the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies and co-edits Inequality. org. Follow her at @Anderson_IPS. Distributed by OtherWords.org.
Letters to the editor
A4 | Thursday, May 31, 2018
Fred Hall
When was the last time anyone heard
of a group of three billboards making
the local newspaper? Apparently the trigger for coverage of any event is “if it's anti- Nunes, we cover it wall to wall.”
About the same time all of this
is occurring, there is an editorial cartoon panel featuring the deliberate misspelling as “Devil Nunes.”
Know what? I have absolutely no problem with that because it is being proffered as editorial opinion on
their editorial page. That is entirely legitimate—It's just when the straight news columns are abused and the paper attempts to force feed propaganda as real, legitimate news when it obviously isn't. The cartoon and its message were infantile but it, at least, was legitimately presented on the editorial page.
The desire to defeat Devin Nunes
is one of those rights which has been constitutionally guaranteed but the press should not be about destroying the reputation of an entire business which has always supplied correct information to the American voting public. Nunes, to me and millions
of other Americans, has always
been something of a bright spot for California in his pursuit of the truth involving the Mueller investigation and his representation of this state. California's real embarrassment, so far, has been our Governor, Attorney General, Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell and the others who have so adamantly resisted the results of a legitimate election.
Certainly everyone is entitled to a dissenting opinion but don't try to package a load of garbage as a Trojan Horse and sell your jaded view as being important and based on fact. I don't know Devin Nunes and have never even met him, but I implore that everyone judge him on his record and not the words of a “sniper.”
But, as always, that's only one man's opinion.
Fred Hall is publisher of the Sentinel.
Guest Column
Our immigration debate needs a lot more humanity
I
attel is one of the largest “Instead of toy-making companies on building a real earth. Turns out it’s one of economy beneficial
tried to associate all immigrants — and particularly those from Latin America — with
criminality.
He’s done this from when he first entered office,
when he created a phone line for people to use to report crimes by immigrants.
First of all, we don’t need a phone line for that. We already have a phone line. It’s called 911. Or, in a non- emergency, you report crimes to your local police.
Second, immigrants actually commit crimes at a lower rate than native born citizens.
Third, and most troublingly, calling human beings animals is one of the steps toward genocide. (Specifically, according to Greg Stanton of Genocide Watch, it’s step three: dehumanization.)
Nobody, even the Nazis, began with concentration camps. They began by creating an idea of us vs. them, dehumanizing Jews by calling them “rats,” and then gradually more extreme steps like forbidding intermarriage or forcing Jews into a ghetto.
Let’s not go there. Immigrants have an intrinsic worth as human beings. We can debate how many people to let into the country, how best to do it, or what sensible precautions to take.
But whatever we do, our immigration policy — and our politics — should recognize every person’s common humanity.
OtherWords columnist Jill Richardson is the author of Recipe for America: Why Our Food System Is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It. Distributed by OtherWords.org.
don’t think I’m alone in believing there’s an intrinsic value to human life.
That is, any human, no matter who they are or what they’re like, has worth simply because they’re human. On some basic level, all of us are equal and precious.
That’s why many of us would save a human from a burning building before we’d try to save a dog. And why we’d go to extreme lengths to save the human if it’s at all possible.
No doubt you have people you love, people you like, and people you dislike. There are people you wouldn’t want to have as a neighbor, co-worker, or friend. But even when you dislike someone personally, and wish to avoid them, you wouldn’t deny their fundamental humanity.
Or at least, I like to think most of us wouldn’t. Apparently, though, some of us would.
I’ve been deeply uneasy with some trends that seem to rank some people as more valuable and others as less. One of them is the idea that immigration should be based on “merit.”
What does merit mean? Merit as a human being?
What’s actually meant by proposals to allow immigration based solely on “merit” is that only the wealthiest and most educated people can come to the U.S.
Calling that “merit” implies that one’s worth as a human is dictated by their wealth and education. I don’t believe that’s true. I believe the poorest and most destitute refugee has equal worth to the wealthiest billionaire.
Beyond their intrinsic worth, immigrants who lack money and education make tremendous contributions. Not least, they put food on America’s tables.
Immigration crackdowns in Alabama, Georgia, and California led to crops rotting in the field when undocumented immigrants were unavailable to pick them, and nobody documented was willing to do the job under the pay and working conditions being
Jill Richardson
offered.
An even more troubling devaluation
of human life was Trump’s assertion that Central American gang members are “violent animals.”
Obviously, few of us would defend or invite members of a violent gang into the United States. The problem here is that Trump has routinely
tax avoidance, downsizing, and the substitution
League of Women Voters of Tulare County promotes political activity
The League of Women Voters is a nonpartisan organization that encourages informed and active participation in government and works to increase understanding of major public policy issues.
In an effort to expand public access to candidates throughout our county, our local unit, as part of the Tulare County Candidate Forum Coalition, co-sponsored two Candidate forums this spring. These forums were the first ever held, in our collective memory, in both English and Spanish in Tulare County. Porterville’s forum was for the contests of State Assembly District 26 and County Supervisor for District 5. Orosi’s forum was for the contests of State Senate District 14 and County Supervisor for District 4. We thank Vanessa Ramirez
of Telemundo who was both moderator and Spanish- English translator for these events.
The third forum we co-sponsored was held in Visalia for the contests of State Assembly District 26 and U.S. Congressional District 22.
The facilities crew at the Tulare Co. Office of Education did an admirable job of accommodating the crowd, which was more than double our expectations. We thank again all the candidates who participated in these three forums. We also thank our co-sponsors for their crucial contributions.
Election Day is rapidly approaching! We hope that everyone will vote in this election. We also hope that
Join the discussion
all candidates who win in this primary election will participate in upcoming candidate forums.
Elections matter. Keep in mind that Democracy is not
a spectator Sport! - Dale Simmons, President League of Women Voters of Tulare County
Agreement on Political Forum take
In response to Ron Jefferson’s letter to the editor, we too were very impressed with Eddie Valero at the political forum last week. After much thought, it is an honor and privilege to also support Eddie Valero for Tulare County Supervisor, District 4.
Eddie lives in Orosi and has been a resident of
this district his entire life except for the years he was pursuing his education on the East Coast (B.S. in Urban and Regional Studies and M.S. in Education at Cornell University). He obviously is exceptionally well educated, understands the needs of Tulare County and has the leadership skills necessary to be a supervisor. But maybe more importantly, he displays superior character that all citizens of this district should demand of their Supervisor. Eddie is honest, trustworthy and caring: he is a very ethical man!
- Donna and Richard Ethridge Dinuba
The Dinuba Sentinel welcomes submissions of letters to the editor on topics of local relevance. Word limit is 350. Letters are considered once per month for each submitter.
Letters must include the author’s name, phone number and address for verification. Mail to 145 South L Street, Dinuba,
CA, 93618, or e-mail to editor@thedinubasentinel.com. Letters will be edited for length, grammar and clarity. Libelous letters will not be printed.
Guest columns will be considered for publication -
E-mail editor@thedinubasentinel.com. Word limit is 650.