But where, exactly? Very interesting. Jay Fitzgerald mocks the pay ($30,000 to $35,000 for an editor, $25,000 to $27,000 for a reporter). But there are plenty of community newspapers that pay worse than that for all except their most senior people.
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Still … for those salaries, you either have to be living at home with your parents or be married to someone making at least twice as much.
I plugged my salary for 1989 — the last year I worked for a community newspaper in eastern Massachusetts — into an online inflation calculator and I got quite a bit more than $35,000.
Patricia: Salaries have not kept up. Not even close.
I hate to admit it, but those salaries are more than competitive.
Must be willing to relocate to the area? Either they’re counting on extreme hunger blinding the applicant’s fiscal sense or they’re looking for someone willing to live in a cardboard box. Granted, there are plenty of unemployed editors and reporters out there, but this smacks of exploitation.
“…smacks of exploitation…”
And your solution to the problem?
Mock it all you want, but that’s a pay raise for most community reporters around Boston.
And trust me, Patricia, we find a way to make it work.
It’s impossible to judge those salaries as fair or exploitive without know the expected operating budget and expected revenue and circ projections. Plus, staff size, range of duties, etc. And remember, print is still making more revenue than web.
Hmmm….maybe I WILL quit the day job…