How important is "trust" in your life?
I recently read a terrific book called "The Speed of Trust" by Stephen Covey's son who is also named Stephen.
His basic premise is that trust makes things go fast or slow.
If you trust someone in a business deal, you can move quickly because you know you'll work out whatever bumps you hit along the way.
But if you do not trust the other person you move slowly and watch every gesture for a hint of duplicity. It's why lawyers study and argue over a single word in a contract, they don't trust the other side to enforce the spirit of the agreement and worry how the word in question could be interpreted.
Which brings us to the stand off between the Portland School District and the Portland Association of Teachers.
I covered the story in Portland in the summer of 2015 that left me surprised at how little trust exists on either side.
The school district seemed convinced the teachers were living in a world that no longer exists with generous salaries and cadillac health care plans paid for by the public.
The teachers seemed to believe the school district had all the money it ever needed and did not want to pay a fair wage for educators who are shaping the minds of the future.
The two sides met at the bargaining table since the spring and reached tentative agreements on only 5 of 28 issues.
That's not a lot of trust.
Mid week, the district called a news conference to announce they'd reached a formal "impasse" with the teachers.
It's a technical term but it means that the clock now ticks on both sides. They either begin to trust each other and work out a solution in 37 days or the district implements its last best offer and the union can go on strike.
Following the district's news conference, the teachers union leaders met with the media.
They said that they were stunned and surprised that the district had declared the impasse.
The two sides had talked earlier in the week and thought more would be scheduled.
Instead the teachers got blindsided.
That probably does little to strengthen trust.
We journalists will need to be wary of being used by either side.
The audience may not realize it but we do go to extra effort to be fair to each side. When I'm picking sound bites I try to give each the same amount of airtime, to the second. If the teachers get 15 seconds to make their case and the district gets 7 seconds that's usually not fair.
I also switch the order of the soundbites. If the teachers got the first word in the 5pm story, I give the district the first word in the 6pm story.
Flipping the soundbites often changes the tone of the story and since we're not here to advocate for one side or the other, it's good to change things up.
Finally, I think most of us journalists work hard to keep our personal opinions out of our stories. I may have a private opinion about who is being reasonable in the teachers-school district dispute but you should not be able to tell from my reporting.
A potential teacher strike is a high emotion story. I knew we were on the right track when supporters from both sides complain about the way we cover an event. With the union-school district talks in 2015, the emails poured iin from both sides.
