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