Columnist salaries

Thomas Boswell better be on that list, if you're not including outside income. He's better than any of those guys and has been with the Post for 40 years.

 

It's not a "better" list. It's highest-profile and highest-paid and while sometimes the people on that list are the best, most of the time it has nothing to do with it. I would be very surprised if Boswell is paid as well as the aforementioned list.

 

I think the people you named on that list certainly have greater earnings than Boswell, but I would be stunned if the Herald is paying Le Batard more than the Post is paying Boswell. Le Batard just has much, much more outside income.

 

In some of the cases, the biggest reason why a columnist is paid as well as they are is because a competitor tried to hire them away and a bidding war ensued. That was the case for DLB awhile back. Without a doubt he makes a ton from his radio show and ESPN work as well.

 

Lebatard rarely writes for the Herald now. He does local radio besides the national stuff.

 

People said the same thing about Kornheiser when he was still on the WP payroll.

 

he writes ever Sunday and occasionally for special events mid-week. i'm a herald subscriber (i've been out of the biz for more than a decade but i used to be a sports writer) and i read him every sunday without fail. his sunday column/takeouts are often, though certainly not always, the best thing in the paper all week. they're an odd hybrid between column and takeout because it's clear he puts more than three hours of work into each piece, but week to week, he sometimes struggles for material.

 

Rumor on DLB was $250K before his big hiatus.

 

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/92648/

This is the link to the thread about the opening in Eugene, Ore., where George Schroeder left to join USA Today. I know George. I know he did a very good job there, and before that probably deserves credit for teaching everybody who covered OU football what beat writing was about. But of interest is the salary for the position. Looks like they're paying about 60K. It's significantly better than what I make, but I'm the SE at a small paper where it's me and three other writers, but I would tend to assume it's the best job at that paper and pays the most (except maybe the SE there). I mean, if everybody else there is within 10K of that position, maybe the staff is paid pretty well and the columnist just isn't treated like a big star. Or maybe George was doing significantly better than that and now they're trying to save money. I don't know. Still, it seems kind of sobering that the very best anybody could do at that paper (Wikipedia says almost 69K circ. during the week and almost 75K circ. on Sunday) is what they're advertising that position to be.

 

The Eugene paper pays quite well, especially for its size.

 

Wonder how much that works out for Albom and Lupica by the inch (height-wise, that is)

 

Pretty good money for being the U's head cheerleader.