"Is this an entry level position?"

Sorry, Moddy, couldn't resist.

But some talk on the jobs board brings to mind a recent opening I'm familiar with in which the salary point they're trying to hit doesn't begin to suggest the proposed responsibilities of the job title. Let's say you hear Sports Editor in that setting and you're thinking to yourself it should be at least $50K job based on the newspaper size and mission and instead the talk is they're looking to fill it for $35K.

I am wondering if this is a trend I've missed to this point, where (some) papers are lowballing SE jobs because there's such a glut of qualified people out there they don't have to pay a premium.

And wouldn't this tend to skew the candidate pool a little bit (or a lot) younger?

I haven't applied for an SE job in the last five years, so I hadn't really been paying attention.

 

I don't know if it is a trend or not but I will say this, if they can get you in the door cheaply, they will.

 

And this is hardly the only industry that does so.

 

No it's not but what is being offered out there for salaries just isn't right.

 

Maybe.

But it's only natural to want to pay as little as possible for something, whether it's an item at a garage sale, your iPhone data plan or a reporter you may be hiring.

Is someone being a monster if he cancels his $45 lawn service and hires someone else who will do it for $30?

 

Well, then we get into the quality issue, I think. And that's always been an elusive concept for a lot of newspaper managers.

 

Only if you believe higher cost always means better quality 100 percent of the time.

Higher cost could mean very talented. Or it could mean nothing more than 30 years of merit raises. And if someone with 30 years of merit raises sees his job being eliminated or outsourced, chances are he'll be going somewhere else for less money. But he won't be less talented just because he's getting less money.

 

As a boss of mine said in the PR world: "Good, fast and cheap - choose two."

 

Journalism is still seen as a desirable, even glamorous, field -- especially for young, idealistic people. And, there are still schools pumping out journalism graduates every year.

Fields like PR, magazine publishing, fashion, and sports marketing have always operated this way. They way under pay for talent, because they can. So many more people want to get into these fields than they have jobs.

With newspaper jobs shrinking, this is going to be the new normal.

 

Of course the suits will still make big money.

 

What I wonder is where the tipping point is for this where they just run out of people willing to do it for what they're paying. Eventually, people wake up, realize it's not worth it, and go off to do something else. So your talent pool drains itself after...what? Two or three years post-grad in the industry once they realize what it actually consists of and that they have a degree that allows them to get a much better entry-level job somewhere else. Meanwhile, mid-career talent is also seeing if they have other options, which many of them do. I just wonder who's left in the industry in the next 10 years. Or even the next five years.