Letter: 'Public' is no reason to publish information

To the Editor:

Is Craig Livingstone now running the paper? I understand that teachers are public employees and that their salaries are a matter of public record, but what is the public benefit of publishing each and every teacher's salary by name? Just because it can be done, doesn't mean it should be done.

What is the journalistic value of this? What is the hidden agenda? What is the "real" motive? I could understand a story about the salary increase and perhaps noting that a teacher previously making $45,000 a year after a ginormous 1.9 percent increase is now making $45,855 a year, or perhaps even organizing the salaries into groups by level. But, really, what is the point of listing each teacher's salary by name?

Peter Gross

Red Wing

Tags: opinion, letters