I like covering the news better than being the news

Usually, I am telling you about other people’s stories. Today, here’s one about me:

My family and I go to church in Anderson. Now, before I go any further, you might be asking why we travel to Anderson for church. When I was a senior at Anderson University, some friends of mine started a Bible study on campus. At their first meeting, they had 12 people. Eleven years later, that Bible study has turned into a church with over 10,000 weekly attendees.

This church is amazing and we love it. This is where we want to be where we can learn, love and serve.

So, back to the story. When we got out of church this past Sunday, several fire trucks were in the parking lot and police tape was strewn across the area. We quickly realized that the fire trucks were very close to where we had parked that morning.

When we started walking to our car, we had to cross the police tape where we were met by a firefighter who asked us what kind of car we drove. When we answered a black Camry, he said, “Please follow me to the tent.” At that point, various four-letter words were racing through my mind.

When we got to the tent, we were told that the truck in front of our car had caught on fire. Due to a breeze blowing directly toward our car and an exploding gas tank from the truck, our car caught the brunt of the damage (there was literally no steering wheel left in the Camry). Other cars were also hit, and in total, five were destroyed and six were damaged.

Within minutes of finding out this information, we were barraged with offers of rides home, food and drinks while we waited and we were kept up to date on everything that was going on. Not only was it church leadership who provided this for us and everyone else in our situation, but church members who had never laid eyes on us before. We were very grateful.

On Monday, my wife and I began the process of filing a claim on our car, talking to investigators and adjustors, getting new drivers’ licenses, new bank cards and everything else we lost in the fire. But, I learned two important lessons from this experience.

First, people helping other people, regardless of who they are, and even if they knew us or not, is an amazing sight. I was literally blown away by the generosity of everyone around us on Sunday. People who were parked on the other side of the parking lot stuck around in 100 degree heat to make sure everyone involved was ok.

Second, I like covering the news much better than I like being the news.

A recent study by several media outlets in the Upstate, including Laurens County, has recently filed Freedom of Information Act requests for the salaries of various public offices and institutions and has made them available in their publications.

While this is perfectly legal and within the means of any news organization to do, the two questions that come out of an action like this is one- Is it wise? And two-What end does it serve?

I have in recent days had constructive arguments with various people about this issue, and I will say up front that I do not think it’s a good idea to publish the salaries of the people who work in public institutions. One counter-argument that has been made to me is that everyone knows what the President makes so why not everyone else?

My response to that question has been and will always be that you could pay the President of the United States one dollar a year and the best of the best would still run for that office simply out of the prestige of it. However, if you start to print what a city manager or school superintendent make, will that make the best of the best want to come to your community?

Also, there are going to be many people who get mad about how much the President/CEO of a hospital makes. But, ask yourself, could I do that job? Could I oversee the operations of a hospital with hundreds of employees and a $50+ million budget? Do you have the education and experience to run an operation like that? I know I don’t.

Could you run a school system with ten schools and hundreds of administrators, teachers, staff members, students, coaches, athletics, and everything else that goes with the job. Could you make the decisions they make and make sure they’re the right decisions? I don’t think I could.

The people who make big bucks are paid big bucks because they are responsible for many employees, day to day operations, multi-million dollar budgets and ensuring the continuity of their institution.

So, it makes no sense to me to come down on public servants for doing a job that not that many people can do and then ridiculing them for how much money they make.

My second point is that it’s easy to throw out some salary numbers and not compare them to anything. Because, when people don’t have anything to judge against, they judge against themselves. And, that leads to anger when an electrician or a teacher sees how much money they make compared to the salary of a City Manager, which is a false comparison.

To see how you stack up in the salary line, you should compare your salary to people who do what you do, not what someone in a completely different field does. That’s the mistake that is being made.

Instead of just throwing out a blanket statement of salaries, there needs to be some research done and compare those salaries to others in a similar job with similar requirements and budgets. That’s the fair and only responsible way to make comparisons.

Maybe organizations can set up some sort of shadow program where members of the community can tag along with executives for a day to see the decisions and work that has to be done each day.

But, don’t count on that happening. The same people who complain about these salaries won’t even come to a School Board meeting or County Council meeting.