$569,392. $522,129. $427,692.
Over the last few years, these numbers have represented top-level executive compensation at NPR, American Public Media Group,and ProPublica.
All people — including journalists — should be able to have access to clean water, healthy food, and stable housing. In the U.S., at this current juncture, any semblance of that would require a living wage.
So considering all of this: If a living wage does not currently exist at your news organization, yet your executive leadership is making 3 to 10 times more than the lowest-paid salary or contract worker, then how are journalists supposed to report for their communities without being exhausted and demoralized? Why are fellows, who are often doing the work of full-time staff, so underpaid in so many newsrooms? Why are low-paid interns being treated as if someone is doing them a favor?
Much of the recent public conversation around salary has focused on salary bands, salary transparency, and empowering workers to unionize. But in 2023, we need to shift the conversation forward: We need to publicly discuss how inappropriate these salary disparities are — both in for-profit and nonprofit newsrooms — when so many news organizations are struggling and laying off workers. We need to, through collective action and our unions, demand better. And newsroom leadership, in good times and bad, needs to model behavior that doesn’t put their salaries first and share their rationale publicly.
We need to make salary disparity unacceptable.
I am not ignorant of the power dynamics at play in suggesting this: Considering the risk to their careers and economic security, student and entry-level journalists cannot do this alone. It’s critical that we as mid-career and late-career journalists use our privilege to call attention to these disparities. It is especially critical to do this as a full-time worker, when you have colleagues (including fellows and interns) on contract without healthcare or benefits.
Even considering some of the cuts executives were willing to make to their salary and bonuses these past few years, how you can feel comfortable as a journalist earning substantially above a living wage while your coworkers feel the economic pain of inflation and the pandemic — along with the tangible harm both bring to their lives — is beyond me.
Next year, realistically, journalism leaders will not stop making disparate pay. But in 2023, we should make it unacceptable for their workers — our coworkers and colleagues — to not be paid fairly while newsroom leadership continues to earn substantial six-figure salaries.
Gabe Schneider is the co-founder of The Objective.
$569,392. $522,129. $427,692.
Over the last few years, these numbers have represented top-level executive compensation at NPR, American Public Media Group,and ProPublica.
All people — including journalists — should be able to have access to clean water, healthy food, and stable housing. In the U.S., at this current juncture, any semblance of that would require a living wage.
So considering all of this: If a living wage does not currently exist at your news organization, yet your executive leadership is making 3 to 10 times more than the lowest-paid salary or contract worker, then how are journalists supposed to report for their communities without being exhausted and demoralized? Why are fellows, who are often doing the work of full-time staff, so underpaid in so many newsrooms? Why are low-paid interns being treated as if someone is doing them a favor?
Much of the recent public conversation around salary has focused on salary bands, salary transparency, and empowering workers to unionize. But in 2023, we need to shift the conversation forward: We need to publicly discuss how inappropriate these salary disparities are — both in for-profit and nonprofit newsrooms — when so many news organizations are struggling and laying off workers. We need to, through collective action and our unions, demand better. And newsroom leadership, in good times and bad, needs to model behavior that doesn’t put their salaries first and share their rationale publicly.
We need to make salary disparity unacceptable.
I am not ignorant of the power dynamics at play in suggesting this: Considering the risk to their careers and economic security, student and entry-level journalists cannot do this alone. It’s critical that we as mid-career and late-career journalists use our privilege to call attention to these disparities. It is especially critical to do this as a full-time worker, when you have colleagues (including fellows and interns) on contract without healthcare or benefits.
Even considering some of the cuts executives were willing to make to their salary and bonuses these past few years, how you can feel comfortable as a journalist earning substantially above a living wage while your coworkers feel the economic pain of inflation and the pandemic — along with the tangible harm both bring to their lives — is beyond me.
Next year, realistically, journalism leaders will not stop making disparate pay. But in 2023, we should make it unacceptable for their workers — our coworkers and colleagues — to not be paid fairly while newsroom leadership continues to earn substantial six-figure salaries.
Gabe Schneider is the co-founder of The Objective.
Victor Pickard The year journalism and capitalism finally divorce
Julia Angwin Democracies will get serious about saving journalism
Alan Henry A reckoning with why trust in news is so low
Karina Montoya More reporters on the antitrust beat
Anita Varma Journalism prioritizes the basic need for survival
Cassandra Etienne Local news fellowships will help fight newsroom inequities
Eric Ulken Generative AI brings wrongness at scale
Kerri Hoffman Podcasting goes local
Delano Massey The industry shakes its imposter syndrome
Joshua P. Darr Local to live, wire to wither
Emily Nonko Incarcerated reporters get more bylines
Peter Bale Rising costs force more digital innovation
Dominic-Madori Davis Everyone finally realizes the need for diverse voices in tech reporting
Jody Brannon We’ll embrace policy remedies
Jennifer Brandel AI couldn’t care less. Journalists will care more.
Sarah Stonbely Growth in public funding for news and information at the state and local levels
Eric Holthaus As social media fragments, marginalized voices gain more power
Martina Efeyini Talk to Gen Z. They’re the experts of Gen Z.
Mael Vallejo More threats to press freedom across the Americas
Mario García More newsrooms go mobile-first
Alexandra Borchardt The year of the climate journalism strategy
Tre'vell Anderson Continued culpability in anti-trans campaigns
Surya Mattu Data journalists learn from photojournalists
Janelle Salanga Journalists work from a place of harm reduction
Ariel Zirulnick Journalism doubles down on user needs
Kaitlyn Wells We’ll prioritize media literacy for children
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Well-being will become a core tenet of journalism
Jaden Amos TikTok personality journalists continue to rise
Wilson Liévano Diaspora journalism takes the next step
Nicholas Jackson There will be launches — and we’ll keep doing the work
Nicholas Diakopoulos Journalists productively harness generative AI tools
Sam Guzik AI will start fact-checking. We may not like the results.
Don Day The news about the news is bad. I’m optimistic.
Mary Walter-Brown and Tristan Loper Mission-driven metrics become our North Star
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau More of the same
Priyanjana Bengani Partisan local news networks will collaborate
Kaitlin C. Miller Harassment in journalism won’t get better, but we’ll talk about it more openly
Jakob Moll Journalism startups will think beyond English
David Cohn AI made this prediction
Sarah Alvarez Dream bigger or lose out
Eric Thurm Journalists think of themselves as workers
Brian Stelter Finding new ways to reach news avoiders
Kavya Sukumar Belling the cat: The rise of independent fact-checking at scale
John Davidow A year of intergenerational learning
Megan Lucero and Shirish Kulkarni The future of journalism is not you
Matt Rasnic More newsroom workers turn to organized labor
J. Siguru Wahutu American journalism reckons with its colonialist tendencies
Sarabeth Berman Nonprofit local news shows that it can scale
Sue Schardt Toward a new poetics of journalism
Parker Molloy We’ll reach new heights of moral panic
Sam Gregory Synthetic media forces us to understand how media gets made
Paul Cheung More news organizations will realize they are in the business of impact, not eyeballs
Kathy Lu We need emotionally agile newsroom leaders
Al Lucca Digital news design gets interesting again
Rachel Glickhouse Humanizing newsrooms will be a badge of honor
Larry Ryckman We’ll work together with our competitors
Khushbu Shah Global reporting will suffer
Jenna Weiss-Berman The economic downturn benefits the podcasting industry. (No, really!)
Johannes Klingebiel The innovation team, R.I.P.
Mariana Moura Santos A woman who speaks is a woman who changes the world
Stefanie Murray The year U.S. media stops screwing around and becomes pro-democracy
Danielle K. Brown and Kathleen Searles DEI efforts must consider mental health and online abuse
Alex Sujong Laughlin Credit where it’s due
Mauricio Cabrera It’s no longer about audiences, it’s about communities
Tim Carmody Newsletter writers need a new ethics
A.J. Bauer Covering the right wrong
Alex Perry New paths to transparency without Twitter
Barbara Raab More journalism funders will take more risks
Jarrad Henderson Video editing will help people understand the media they consume
Francesco Zaffarano There is no end of “social media”
Amethyst J. Davis The slight of the great contraction
Amy Schmitz Weiss Journalism education faces a crossroads
Doris Truong Workers demand to be paid what the job is worth
Molly de Aguiar and Mandy Van Deven Narrative change trend brings new money to journalism
Zizi Papacharissi Platforms are over
Ryan Gantz “I’m sorry, but I’m a large language model”
Josh Schwartz The AI spammers are coming
Julia Beizer News fatigue shows us a clear path forward
Leezel Tanglao Community partnerships drive better reporting
Walter Frick Journalists wake up to the power of prediction markets
David Skok Renewed interest in human-powered reporting
Richard Tofel The press might get better at vetting presidential candidates
Jim Friedlich Local journalism steps up to the challenge of civic coverage
Nikki Usher This is the year of the RSS reader. (Really!)
Dana Lacey Tech will screw publishers over
Michael Schudson Journalism gets more and more difficult
Lisa Heyamoto The independent news industry gets a roadmap to sustainability
Andrew Donohue We’ll find out whether journalism can, indeed, save democracy
Anna Nirmala News organizations get new structures
Cari Nazeer and Emily Goligoski News organizations step up their support for caregivers
Alexandra Svokos Working harder to reach audiences where they are
Sumi Aggarwal Smart newsrooms will prioritize board development
Gordon Crovitz The year advertisers stop funding misinformation
An Xiao Mina Journalism in a time of permacrisis
Jessica Clark Open discourse retrenches
Gina Chua The traditional story structure gets deconstructed
Ryan Kellett Airline-like loyalty programs try to tie down news readers
Juleyka Lantigua Newsrooms recognize women of color as the canaries in the coal mine
Ståle Grut Your newsroom experiences a Midjourney-gate, too
Errin Haines Journalists on the campaign trail mend trust with the public
Ben Werdmuller The internet is up for grabs again
Bill Grueskin Local news will come to rely on AI
Ryan Nave Citizen journalism, but make it equitable
Moreno Cruz Osório Brazilian journalism turns wounds into action
Basile Simon Towards supporting criminal accountability
Joni Deutsch Podcast collaboration — not competition — breeds excellence
Burt Herman The year AI truly arrives — and with it the reckoning
Joanne McNeil Facebook and the media kiss and make up
Ayala Panievsky It’s time for PR for journalism
Jacob L. Nelson Despite it all, people will still want to be journalists
Daniel Trielli Trust in news will continue to fall. Just look at Brazil.
Simon Galperin Philanthropy stops investing in corporate media
Janet Haven ChatGPT and the future of trust
Laura E. Davis The year we embrace the robots — and ourselves
Emma Carew Grovum The year to resist forgetting about diversity
Cory Bergman The AI content flood
Sue Robinson Engagement journalism will have to confront a tougher reality
Hillary Frey Death to the labor-intensive memo for prospective hires
Kirstin McCudden We’ll codify protection of journalism and newsgathering
Elite Truong In platform collapse, an opportunity for community
Esther Kezia Thorpe Subscription pressures force product innovation
Peter Sterne AI enters the newsroom
Cindy Royal Yes, journalists should learn to code, but…
Gabe Schneider Well-funded journalism leaders stop making disparate pay
Snigdha Sur Newsrooms get nimble in a recession
Jim VandeHei There is no “peak newsletter”
Masuma Ahuja Journalism starts working for and with its communities
Shanté Cosme The answer to “quiet quitting” is radical empathy
Jessica Maddox Journalists keep getting manipulated by internet culture
Laxmi Parthasarathy Unlocking the silent demand for international journalism
Felicitas Carrique and Becca Aaronson News product goes from trend to standard
Jennifer Choi and Jonathan Jackson Funders finally bet on next-generation news entrepreneurs
Jonas Kaiser Rejecting the “free speech” frame
Pia Frey Publishers start polling their users at scale
Upasna Gautam Technology that performs at the speed of news
Dannagal G. Young Stop rewarding elite performances of identity threat
Anthony Nadler Confronting media gerrymandering
Sarah Marshall A web channel strategy won’t be enough
Rodney Gibbs Recalibrating how we work apart
S. Mitra Kalita “Everything sucks. Good luck to you.”
Michael W. Wagner The backlash against pro-democracy reporting is coming
Joe Amditis AI throws a lifeline to local publishers
Christina Shih Shared values move from nice-to-haves to essentials
Sue Cross Thinking and acting collectively to save the news
Raney Aronson-Rath Journalists will band together to fight intimidation
Christoph Mergerson The rot at the core of the news business
Brian Moritz Rebuilding the news bundle
Jesse Holcomb Buffeted, whipped, bullied, pulled
Susan Chira Equipping local journalism
Andrew Losowsky Journalism realizes the replacement for Twitter is not a new Twitter
Taylor Lorenz The “creator economy” will be astroturfed
Anika Anand Independent news businesses lead the way on healthy work cultures
Nicholas Thompson The year AI actually changes the media business