One question I’ve been asked often since I started working at the Transcript is “Whose side are you on?”

Sometimes people ask directly. Sometimes they beat around the bush. Do I support Grantsville or Tooele? The County or the cities? The school district or the charter school? Republicans or Democrats? Developers or government officials? Cops or the accused?

You can reshuffle many of those match-ups. What people really want to know is if I’m sympathetic to their cause.

I’ve often gotten a story idea only after someone found out I was from Grantsville, or live in Tooele. One caller was delighted to complain to me about the provincialism of local people when she learned I’d moved here from Honolulu, then sheepish when she found out I was a native Utahn. Another had a story idea for me but wanted to know my religion first so she’d know whether I could be trusted.

Sometimes readers complain about biases attributed to me or the paper generally. One reader wrote me a letter not long ago that said: “It would be nice if the Trans-Bull was a little more liberal and not so Chamber of Commerce oriented.” Other readers have questioned why I’m so anti-business — an odd charge, I think, to level at someone who’s spent the majority of his journalism career covering business.

A Salt Lake Tribune blogger accused the Transcript of being blatantly pro-EnergySolutions earlier this year — a sentiment I suspect the company itself would not share. And when the school year began in August, one Grantsville reader called to complain that I was obviously a homer for Stansbury Park, since we’d covered the opening of the new high school there but hadn’t given equal coverage to opening day at GHS or THS.

Occasionally public officials who’ve received positive coverage in the past feel betrayed by critical articles later. In their wounded responses I often hear the argument: “But I thought we were friends.”

Publishing magnate Joseph Pulitzer had an answer to that a long time ago: “A newspaper has no friends.”

It sounds callous and disinterested to say I’m not on anybody’s side though. I’d rather say I’m on the side of the 25,000 people who read each issue of the Transcript, who pick up the newspaper expecting objectivity and honesty. I believe they want factual reporting and reasoned opinions that present themselves as such. They don’t want an editorial department that attempts to stroke its friends and punish its enemies.

I’m certainly not the only member of the Transcript crew who is sized up for his allegiances. Mark Watson, our sports editor, has to be careful which sideline he stands on to cover any intravalley contest. Tim Gillie, who writes on Tooele City, was thrown into a real quandary recently when he reported on oral arguments in the Grantsville vs. Tooele lawsuit before the Utah Supreme Court. He walked into the courtroom and, seeing the two cities’ representatives on opposite sides, had no idea where to sit. Tim said it was like being at a wedding where you know both bride and groom well and everyone is watching to see which family you like better.  

The question of whose side a journalist is on seems to come up even more often during an election year. That’s one reason the newspaper’s recent practice has been to not editorialize in favor of a candidate. Large metro papers with detached editorial boards may be able to pull this off, but in a community this size it would be very difficult to objectively cover candidates we had come out in favor of or in opposition to.

I’m comfortable sitting on the fence, perhaps from many years of professional practice. Plus I’m a stranger myself to some of these entrenched divides. Sometimes, though, I wonder why we so often ask people to choose sides, particularly in a small community. Don’t all those divisions just keep us from seeing both sides of the story? And doesn’t that perhaps stop us from recognizing just how similar our concerns and aspirations are?

jbarrus@tooeletranscript.com