Typical salary for local sportswriter/sports editor

$11/hour is $22,000 a year. We don't know how small a paper it is, how often it prints, where you live, so hard to know how that salary translates. Fact that you're looking at the job says you can't be that happy in the existing job. Best of luck, as I'd tell anyone trying to move into journalism right now ...

 

Yeah, and how fucked up is that?

"Our new sports hire is really terrific, and we were able to low-ball him on salary!"

 

Hey, even the worst 13-0, nails on chalkboard softball game is typically less mind-numbing than covering a town council meeting. The "fun" of covering sports for a living eventually wears off, but in comparison to a lot of other journalism gigs, there can be less drudgery involved, I'd say.

 

What's remarkable is that these numbers I'm seeing -- $9.50 an hour, $10 an hour -- are the kinds of numbers I was making as a very young sportswriter at a medium-sized newspaper in the Midwest.

In 1991.

Newspapers are stealing labor.

 

The availability of tons of out-of-work writers with extensive newspaper experience allows papers to hire qualified candidates for less -- and yet we still see layoffs across the industry. It's going to get worse before it gets better.

 

I made $10 an hour at a 25-30k daily right out of college, May of '99. Big city exurb community.

 

A little while back I was a web producer for a college town paper and managed to negotiate an OK salary based partly on the fact I couldn't take the job unless I could afford to put my daughter in daycare. About a month in the football beat writer job came open. I went into the managing editor's office and he knew what I was going to say before I closed the door.

I said "look, I know the timing isn't great, but we both know this is the job I've always wanted." He said yeah, but if I really wanted it go through the application process and he'd make it work. The only thing was I'd have to take a pay cut.

"How much?"

"Significant. You might have to find cheaper day care."

This was for a job that would have likely given me the first or second most-read byline in the joint.

 

Straight out of college I worked for a small daily in the Southwest and got $6.25 an hour. Worked out to $250 a week with no overtime. Twenty years later, still working in the Southwest and making $13.25 an hour and I occassionally get some OT. That works out to $510 a week and up to $600 a week. It aint much money, but I'm happy, and unlike many in my field, I've still got a job doing what I love.

If you want to do this job, you ain't doing it for the money. They said it when I got in, and they're still saying it now. It's either in your blood or it aint.

 

I think Left meant to say in the first post "I refuse to take a massive pay cut."

 

if someone is making $11 an hour, then a tax deduction for unreimbursed expenses such as mileage likely won't come into play because at that wage, the standardized deduction is probably going to be more than itemizing.

 

Did you make the switch?