“You can’t handle fairness!”
What a shame! I heard that Brian Sharp needs to work two jobs to make ends meet.
His first job is a staff reporter for the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. It’s not a very good job. He told me several months ago that he makes about $39,000 a year. I understand why he isn’t paid a whole bunch because he’s not very good at his first job. You see, he has this habit of writing stories that either don’t make sense or simply mislead the public.
He has a hard time accurately reporting a story. Here are a few examples.
Did you read the ‘investigative stories’ about police overtime a few months ago? It was an exposé about police overtime—-but although he tried real, real hard, he didn’t EXPOSE any wrongdoing. The story said this. Cops work hard at special events because the Police Department wants them there to protect the public. Then the police are paid overtime pursuant to our labor contract. He tried real, real hard to make brave cops look bad but hard-working Brian Sharp just couldn’t do it. So sad.
So now Brian goes back to his very own, personal computer that the newspaper lets him use to write stories that tend to be anti-union, and he tries again to write a story about police overtime. The September 12, 2007 story (and they call them STORIES for a reason) misses the mark again. He does try to recover from the first story on overtime by saying that story verified the fact that police officers were using overtime to inflate pensions. To be fair, he could have said that the police officers volunteer their professional services to help the city became a nice, safe place to enjoy some recreational activities. He could have said that officers don’t inflate their pensions but simply follow the law and enjoy the benefits that the New York State Pension System regulates. But now he wants to recover from his first non-exposé so he writes a story about the grievance that the union won and a neutral arbitrator found the CITY violated their own labor agreement.
Then he fails to mention that the Special Events budget is $1.2million but approximately 40% is paid back by promoters and the rest is spent because the City wants to spend the money. He also failed to mention that the County of Monroe OWES the City about $500,000 for services rendered at Frontier Field. He also failed to mention that the union WON the grievance. It’s not the arbitrator’s fault or the union’s fault that the County doesn’t pay their bills or the City violated the agreement.
So, that’s why Brian Sharp needs a second job to make a decent wage. Either he’s real good at what he does and is not allowed to write fair and balanced stories, or the managers at the D&C are getting just what they want – an underpaid reporter who is trying so hard to make a story where none exists.
Remember, the Gannett reporters have been working without a contract for about 14 years. Not exactly a strong union shop—that’s their reputation.
Our reputation is just the opposite. We are a strong union shop that works hard to protect our police officers, our profession and our community.
The City and the newspaper are joined at the hip against this union. We want fairness, they want total control. They can’t handle either.
Posted by rplc 
Posted by rplc 
Posted by rplc 