The Pulse - September 27, 2016
Posted by Nancy Teichert on Sep 29, 2016
Sacramento Bee Columnist Marcos Breton doesn’t expect everyone to agree with his opinions. Vivek Ranadive, the owner of the Sacramento Kings, had a special meeting with his boss to complain about him. Star player DeMarcus Cousins has blocked him from his twitter account.
An elected officially recently referred to him as a “dim bulb.”
Par for the course, he says. “A columnist is supposed to write honestly about issues, no matter who gets upset,” he explained to our club Tuesday. “A columnist is supposed to be loyal to one constituency only: you the readers.”
“I truly love Rotarians. You all care about your community. You work hard to try to make it better. You read the Sacramento Bee. You read me,” said Breton, who was introduced by Jeff vonKaenel (Sacramento News & Review). “What’s not to love?”
A journalist for 30 years including the last nine as a columnist, Breton also has written two books about baseball and has qualified for a vote in the Baseball of Fame. He switched from writing about sports to news in 2007. “The column has to either make you think, make you mad, make you laugh or make you understand something or someone better than you did before,” he said.
Recently, he has written about a mentally ill African American man shot 18 times and killed by the Sacramento Police and has been accused of convicting the officers in his column. He said no one knows if the shooting of Joseph Mann was justified because of the lack of transparency. He said the investigations are conducted by the police or colleagues in the District Attorney’s office and can take a year or longer. A video of the shooting was not released by the police until the Sacramento Bee obtained a video from another source.
His recent columns about a lawsuit against the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department by four female deputies for sexual discrimination have focused on the cost to taxpayers of $10 million in damages and legal fees after the county closed ranks and tried to protect the offending officers.
The son of immigrants, he has written about the need for overtime pay for farmworkers. He disagreed with the 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick for not standing for the national anthem but defended him because our country can tolerate dissent.
When Charles K. McClatchy published the Sacramento Bee beginning in 1857, it was sued, boycotted and condemned for opinions written at that time. When readers threaten to cancel their subscriptions because they disagree with him, he tells them, don’t read me but keep supporting the primary source of news in our region. With competition from news on the internet, there may not be a printed newspaper by the time he retires, he warns. “It is a blessing of our freedoms that we get to be mad at our newspaper,” he said.
President Dan McVeigh thanked Forrest Junod for the wine; and musicians Paul Stone, Jeff Stone (John O Bronson Co/HUB Int'l) and William Shubb (U.S. District Court); and greeters Ron Crane (DCA Partners) and Allison Cagley (California Musical Theater). He thanked J.D. Dannenfelser (JD Enterprises) for audio-visual and set-up crew Dave Higdon (California Moving Systems) and
Ted White (Sacramento Delta Property Management). Jeff Stone provided the thought for the day.
Meeting sponsor April Javist (Sacramento Public Library Foundation) reminded members to participate in the March for Literacy on Oct. 15. Other announcements included details on this Saturday’s Sacramento Century Challenge bicycle race and the need for more volunteers by PP Susan Sheridan and Todd Andrews (Andrews Construction, Inc.). PP Fred Teichert (Teichert Foundation) announced Up With People will be performing Friday at the Memorial Auditorium with all profits going to the Boys & Girls Club and Jim Phillips reminded members of the hike in Yosemite National Park on Oct. 14.