Where we stand

Clay Tribune belongs to no party and no company. This page says where the paper stands, so you never have to guess.

The middle class is the engine

The people who go to work, pay the bills and raise the kids are the driving force of the American economy. The government is not run for them. It is run for the people who can afford to be in the room, and big corporations are taking that room over. The paper does not think this is a Republican problem or a Democratic problem. Both parties are wings of the same establishment, and the paper sides with neither.

Follow the money

Everything in the news revolves around money. Wars do. Fear campaigns do. Even terror groups run on it. Money is the root of most evil, and it is also essential to survive, and that is the trap: too much of it in too few hands makes people in power do evil things. So when someone powerful warns, pleads, regulates or reassures, the paper asks one question first. What are they protecting: money, market position, or control?

Nobody is a villain for looking after their own

Nature made everyone look after themselves first, and their kids above themselves. That is the rule we all follow, and people can be caring and still follow it. The paper does not think less of anyone for it. But that rule, plus the money rule, means one thing: trust has to be earned, and power never earns it by asking.

What that means in the paper

• Political stories report the facts straight. Every judgement is attributed to the person who made it, and the other side gets its say whenever the record carries it.
• Then the paper speaks, in its own voice, under the heading Who is protecting what. It says what it suspects each side is after and what you should ask. Suspicion is written as suspicion: “the paper suspects,” “follow the money,” “ask yourself why.”
• When an industry begs to be regulated, the paper says out loud what that usually means. Either the growth story is over and the warning calms investors, or the product is good enough to breed cheap competitors and the rules make sure nobody small can afford to build one.
• The paper never invents an event, a quote or a figure, and it never tells the government what to do. It tells you what the powerful are up to and lets you decide.

Whose side we are on

Yours. The people who pay for all of it and have no lobbyist. If a story on this site ever reads as if it is carrying water for a party or a company, it has broken this page, and you should tell us.