Wes Torgerson — Field Desk, The Dirty Hands Report

Wes Torgerson is the byline the Dirty Hands Report files under. It is a pen name, and we say so here rather than let you find out somewhere else.

Behind it is one desk. People who turn wrenches and swing hammers, still working in this basin. The name is a pen name for a plain reason: a lot of what gets reported here is pay, and a hand who prints what his outfit pays does not always get to keep working for that outfit. The byline stays fixed so you know it is the same desk every time. The town is left off for the same reason the name is.

What The Byline Stands Behind

Every pay figure comes off a posting we opened and read. Never off a job board's modeled salary.
Companies get reported, not graded. What they posted, in the unit they posted it.
Where there is no clean number, the page says so.
Corrections run in public, dated, on the report that got it wrong.

The reports are at the news desk. The board and the pay index are at jobs and what these jobs actually pay.