North County Times editorial page has no standards

Joan Brubaker's Forum, "Vista Teachers Seek Total Control" could not have been published in any other newspaper in our county. In normal newspapers editorial content must be based on fact. Yes, there is opinion; but verifiable facts must be woven in. The facts must be included as evidence for the conclusions drawn by the editorial writer. This basic tenet of fact based editorial journalism is not being followed today in the North County Times.

Here are three Brubaker statements in her "Forum" that are made without "facts in evidence". None of these statements could have made it onto the editorial page of any other newspaper in our county and one suspects in our state.

(1)" four members of the board are bought and paid by VTA"

(2)"The 'throttle hold' VTA has on the guiding staff of Vista Unified has denied the superintendent to use one of the engines to success she was using"

(3)"Efforts are now under way by VTA to shuffle or "buy out" the deputy superintendent"

Each of these statement is written with no evidence or facts to back up the statement.

The first, (1)"four members of the board are bought and paid by the VTA" is a libel and slander against duly elected board members. It is also contrary to facts and evidence on the ground in our district. The teachers have had no contract in over two years. The teachers have had no salary increase in even longer. In fact the teachers took a salary cut this year of one paid day to keep K-3 class size reduction. The Vista Teachers Association was not consulted in any way with the original hiring of Joyce Bales or with the extension of her contract just before last year's election. There is no way the VTA leadership or membership as a whole would have been in favor of that contract extension for a superintendent who has a history in VUSD of unilateral, top down, 'my way or the highway' decisions. I can only guess that the VTA leadership and membership wishes it had some say in decisions by the board in our district.

The second (2) "the 'throttle hold' VTA has on the guiding staff of Vista Unified has denied the superintendent to use one of the engines to success she was using," is factually incorrect. It was the parents of the SSC who did not want to spend the money on LMB not the teachers. Teachers teach with whatever is provided to them. Last year they were given and told to use LMB they did. This year they are using something else that they are given and told to use. Teachers do not have a dog in this fight. So why were they allowed to be made the "bad guys" by the editor who approved this Forum? The NCTimes has rejected publising many other Forums, why did they publish this one?

The third (3)"Efforts are now under way by VTA to shuffle or "buy out" the deputy superintendent," is made up out of whole cloth. It came from left field and it makes no sense. First when Brubaker says,"efforts are underway by the VTA...", she does not seem to realize that the VTA is an organization not a person. Real newspapers would demand to have evidence before publishing such a ludicrous charge. A real newspaper with a real editorial standards would have forced Brubaker to back up this wild charge with the following information before publishing the charge in their newspaper. Here are the questions that should have been answered first:
(a)Who in the VTA is doing these "efforts"?
(b)What exactly did they do?
(c)When did they do these actions?
(d)Where did these "efforts" take place?
(e)How are they doing it?
(f)Why are they doing it?

Come on this is basic journalism 101. Where is the editorial fact checking?
These same six questions should have been asked about all of Brubaker's allegations, not just the third one. But these questions were not asked. No demand was placed on Brubaker to substantiate any of her allegations before the Forum piece was published.

Finally the whole notion of this Brubaker Forum that there is a great teacher plot to stop students from learning to read is such a HUH? How can anyone respond to such and nutty charge? What is the entire focus of school teachers? Teaching our students. That is our highest and first priority. This broad slander against every teacher in VUSD makes no sense on its face. It does not pass the smell test. Why was it allowed in Brubaker's forum?

How do you even rebut someone who believes such nonsense? We might as well argue with a tree as to provide impartial fact based rebuttal to someone who would write this way and a newspaper editorial staff that would allow it to be published. So the question remains, why is this newspaper publishing it? The only answer is a complete lack of all normal newspaper editorial standards. Apparently as long as the "Forum" agrees with the prejudice of the editorial staff, no normal newspaper standards are applied. Sad, sad end for once was a fine newspaper.

Brubaker's Forum can be found here:
http://www.nctimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/article_ca1b424c-156c-52d7-8169-d3eb741bc3be.html?mode=story