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Revisiting an Uncomfortable Subject and Setting the Record Straightby Patti Sewall, Editor of PEACEKeeperIn our last issue, we briefly touched on a recent government report that gave a rather unflattering look inside the world of California's correctional system. The Legislative Analysts Office (LAO) report, dated February 7, 2008, gave a somewhat scathing and underresearched overview of the alleged unjustly high salaries of the state's correctional peace officers. Yep, that's right. In case you missed it, Elizabeth Hill, the state's chief legislative analyst and presumably head writer on the report titled Correctional Officer Pay, Benefits, and Labor Relations, pretty much told the world that your job is rather cush and quite sought after, and correctional peace officers are underworked and overpaid. Well, if that report had me shaking my head, it surely must have upset a lot of you. Then, as if the governmental spewings of the LAO weren't bad enough, newspaper writers all over the state jumped at the chance to interpret the report for their readers, because, as one editorial writer put it to his readers, "It's my job to read these things so you don't have to." Well, on behalf of the many CCPOA members who are also his readers, may I just say don't do us any favors. And here's why. What the writer did was to take the LAO report as factual, without checking out a couple of glaring omissions and errors, and in that one sweeping, grandstanding moment he aligned himself with the report writers who did a great disservice to not only the 36,000 hardworking correctional peace officers in this state, but also to anyone who ends up reading the 20 page report and takes it as gospel. In other words, he didn't do his homework any better than the LAO did. However, to be fair, I will say The Sacramento Bee is certainly not the only newspaper to participate in selective journalism. And remember, editorial writing is not news writing. The rules of play are different. Also, as modern technology changes the world as we know it, print media is facing its own set of problems. Still, I can't for the life of me remember the last time I read a newspaper article about correctional peace officers injured in attacks by inmates. And that is a sad commentary right there. I could go on, but I'd rather allow space to one of our members who said it better than I could in a letter he recently sent to CCPOA headquarters. He was moved to write us - and The Sacramento Bee - after reading the Bee's editorial Report says state shouldn't give guards a pay raise," dated February 12, 2008. "Perhaps what is hardest for me, as a state employee and a C.O., is dealing with the unrelenting anti-officer propaganda spewed on a regular basis by The Sacramento Bee," wrote C.O. Jeffrey Zekas of Susanville in a letter to the Peacekeeper. "Why do the editors of The Bee hate us so much? And why do they find it necessary to lie and/or manipulate the truth? Whatever happened to fair, honest, balanced reporting?" he asked. "I have been a working man and a union member most of my adult life," Zekas continued. "And, yet, I am still baffled by educated folks who criticize me and my friends, especially since we do the dirty jobs that they would never even think of doing." In his letter to us, Zekas explained that after a series of letters to the author and his editor at The Bee, it was apparent they had no intention of printing his letter. "What was even more baffling is how little most people, especially newspaper reporters, know about correctional officers - or unions, for that matter," he wrote. I'm glad the offensive Bee editorial got Officer Zekas thinking and writing. What follows is his attempt to explain to them just how his union works, what it means to be a correctional peace officer in this state, and the important facts that were left out of the Bee editorial. - Editor Whitehead, Weintraub, and Wages By Jeffrey W. Zekas READ the EDITORIAL  Print This PageBack to Volume 25, Issue 3 Back to PEACEKeeper Main Page |
