Will this business ever wise up and pay better?

Isn't it all relative?

You walk into work tomorrow and your boss says he (or she) is going to give you $75k a year. Something tells me you'd then buy a house, buy a car, buy a new TV or big-ticket item and suddenly you have all these new expenses. You're right back to living on a fixed income.

Unless you write a best-seller or find out you can shoot under par consistently, chances are you'll always feel like you don't have enough money.

 

Dear Dawgpound: What you say is to an extent true. Costs rise to meet income. But in most lives, what drives the need to spend more money is falling in love, getting married, and above all, having children. Ain't no day care insurance. Orthodontists aren't covered in most health plans. If you start saving for their college educations the day YOU'RE born, you can't pay for them.
Lou Dobbs is a crabby old nut. But he's right about one thing. It's not just us, gang. The whole idea of a decent life in the American middle class is becoming an anachronism.
To quote George Carlin, "It's called the American dream 'cause you got to be asleep to still believe in it."

 

Great points. Another one to raise: As bad as some salaries now, those averages may look a bit worse as newspapers continue to have this stigma as struggling, especially in the bigger industrial markets that up to now have paid better.

 

They claim they're struggling, yet the have lots of $ to pound down the Internet and design ratholes.

I've seen the tax forms of some of the non-profits. They're not hurting for dollars, and they get their $ from newspapers.

 

Like those of you have said, newspapers won't pay more. The publisher here writes a few inches every month on the front page of this idiotic newsletter we get once a month. Without fail, it's all about whether the paper is ahead of or behind the fiscal plan.

That shit doesn't mean a fucking thing to me. If it finishes ahead of plan, then I'm sure he'll get a fat fucking bonus that makes my salary look like peanuts. If it doesn't he won't. Either way, they're not going to pay me any more.

Maybe my apathy is up because it's late, and I feel a cold coming on.

 

It's not a cold. It's my cat wishing harm upon you for both hating cats and being a Chiefs fan

As to the topic at hand, as long they expect double-digit profit margins, newsroom salaries at small papers will continue to suck giant donkey balls. It's better at bigger papers, but I'm still making significantly less than I would be if I'd been able to adjust my schedule and stick to teaching (not to mention the additional time off I'd have).

 

We have a sports writer position open and it has been that way for months. The pay is absolute shit and potential applicants are no longer buying it. I say good for them, but it absolute sucks for me. I tire of doing the extra work for the same pay. I can do it for a little while, but after a few months something has to give.

It's not isolated either. There are three other papers in my region which have similar openings which aren't being filled.

 

I usually paid attention to the stuff about the fiscal plan, not because I expected any sort of reward, but because of concern the newspaper would seize upon a bad financial report card to do even more stupid things than it already was doing.

 

I think this is becoming more of a trend. Of course, newspapers will continue to leave the positions unfilled as it continues.

And I'm not backing off my statement there always will be people dumb enough to take the shitty pay and take some of these jobs. They're just a bit more selective about where they'll work to take the shitty pay.

One of the few intelligent comments I've seen on Poynter in the last 5 years came recently from someone who was poking some serious fun at places like Martinsville that are always advertising positions. No one at Poynter grasped the point, though. As usual.

 

And the result if you found something: You stepped up and tried to stop it, or you just took a deep breath and got angrier?

 

Times are changing. You can't afford a house on $45000 anymore. And sorry to say most writing jobs at newspapers under 100000 circ are below 45000.

I just read something that the median housing price in America requires household income to be $85000. That is assuming 10 percent down and you are financing the rest.

I know my colleagues, who aren't married, are getting paid $28,000 and can't even live off that. Not in Connecticut area anyhow. Think about how much you have to pay in student loans for current students.

If you can't afford to buy a house, pay student loans, and drive a car that isn'
t 10 years old the job isn't paying enough.

And what other professions? I had an interview (didn't get the job) with an insurance company that needed someone to write marketing pamphlets. It paid $59,000 right off the bat.

The journalism field outside of the metros is losing talent rather quickly. How many here can survive in their area as a single guy making $30,000 a year? Where do you live?

A realistic housing price in the Northeast is about $150,000 on the low end. Anything under that price in the New Jersey, Metro-NY and Southern New England is usually a dump.

You want 4 bedroom relatively in good shape in the suburbs? You looking $200,000 and up.

That is unattainable unless your spouse is rolling in dough. A lot of people who haven't had to buy houses in the last 10 years have no idea how hard it is.

We can't fill positions at our paper because they want to pay in the mid 20s. You mind as well work at McDonald's.

If I was a college grad now and could do it all over again, I would have been an accountant.

 

I'm sure this will disappoint you, but I was pretty fortunate in that I mostly avoided the places with the bad financial reports.

In terms of trying to stop it, I took control in the one area where there was some control: Making deadline. Of course, the post-production area promptly took the credit, and the higher-ups were too dumb to realize what bullshit they were spewing.

You're showing your ignorance here, Spot. If you did your homework, I think you'd find I'm telling the truth on this one.