I’m always amazed and disgusted when the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel writes smug little columns without providing us any context.

Apparently there’s a Wisconsin State Legislator who has decided that he doesn’t need to accept a pay raise. Now mind you, he doesn’t even make $50,000 a year but the JS chose “Legislator won’t accept pay raise” as their headline.

Forgive the cynicism but those that are best at getting the headlines aren’t necessarily the best policy makers.

More to the point, we should be asking how this legislator is paying his bills? Is he married and if so, is his family pleased that he’s passing on this cost of living pay adjustment. Incidentally, this reflects about a $2000 raise over a 4 year period. (Yes, that’s just $500 per year for those who are mathematically challenged.)

When I served on the County Board, one of my colleagues used to put out a press release every term stating how she was returning the pay raise. (Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker used to do the same thing.) The difference between her and the majority of her colleagues was that she had the luxury of staying at home and dabbling in politics because her husband was a well to do attorney. A little thousand dollar a 4 year term increase wasn’t a big deal to her and since she barely showed up at the board, well let’s face it, she didn’t earn the raise anyway. But when I suggested a County Board resolution rolling back the healthcare for life program which she benefited — she became a screeching harpy because she “earned” that benefit.

But my problem isn’t so much with a single pol, or even with a few who are concerned about getting their slice of the pie, but with the way that the Journal-Sentinel chooses to report on these things. Wouldn’t it seem the decent thing to do to as a reporter would be to ask why that person felt they didn’t deserve to get a middle class salary? Well let’s go ahead and name him — Bob Ziegelbauer. Is this State Legislator job just a part time gig for Ziegelbauer? How much time does Ziegelbauer really put in for his job? Maybe he only deserves $1000 a year because he doesn’t do anything. If that’s the case, he’s really ripping off the taxpayers by $46000 isn’t he? Is that not a much bigger story?

What is really amusing — to the point of ridiculousness, is that these reporters and editors at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel choose to focus on the minutia rather than the big picture. How could it make any sense to focus on a story of a legislator returning $2000 a year when the state budget is billions and billions of dollars? It seems as though they’ve been sucked into a shell game — don’t look at the big picture folks, because here, there’s a legislator turning back a full $2000 a year.

Lazy journalism has become more and more prevalent as editors go for the cheap and easy stories which add nothing to real political discourse. Journalistic incompetence and laziness is caused by many reasons including eroding revenues caused by decreased circulation which has forced news departments to eliminate or cut back dramatically on the more costly investigative reporting. Case in point, the JS plans to do a story on the audit that MPS is carrying out which will decide whether School Board member Charlene Harden crossed an ethical line by taking a publicly funded trip to take a seminar in Philadelphia. Here’s the facts: Hardin brought a friend with her on the trip, and rented a Chrysler 300 ($30,000 base price before accessories) and then didn’t attend the conference. We need an audit for this?

Despite the fact that this is already an open and shut case, expect the JS to cover it as though they have exposed some sort of coverup.