Packers beat writer, Green Bay, WI

All the talk about average college graduate's wages reminds me of "Bill Gates walks into a bar and raises everyone's average wealth by $45 billion."

 

To me, the truly elite jobs are the ones that pay the most at the largest outlets -- writing for ESPN, The New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe et cetera.

 

Sorry, but most reporters won't hit $55k. The median is $36K. The 75th percentile is $55K.

http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes273022.htm

 

I would guess most NFL beat writers working for the primary paper(s) of the teams they cover make more than what Green Bay is paying.

But Green Bay is also the smallest market in the NFL and, unless I'm forgetting someplace, in major pro sports. It's the size of Midland, Texas (actually, a little smaller) or Davenport, Iowa. It's half the size of such metro hot spots as Mobile, Ala. and Akron, Ohio.

So we have two things at work. For a paper in that size market, $55-60k is HUGE. Having worked in markets that size, getting over $40k is asking for a lot.

However, for an NFL beat, that's relatively small potatoes. I'm guessing most make more than that, but they are at places like the Plain Dealer, where most of us can only wish to work for (does that guy still post in here?).

 

This is veering off topic, but out of curiosity I googled the average salary of a teacher at a randomly picked public high school in Green Bay. $56,000, which was actually much lower than I would have expected.

 

Fascinating. But I don't have any clue what your point is, and we are getting way off topic here.

 

Let's steer it back to topic then with another thing: cost of living. I can't imagine Green Bay would be a very expensive place to live... not like Milwaukee (which doesn't seem bad either) or definitely Chicago.

 

San Diego pays much less than this job.

 

Unless something has changed, this job isn't being filled.

 

By "this job," I take it you mean the SE position?

 

The job of volunteer firefighters in small towns and firefighters in urban areas is completely different. Like the difference between JV high school football and Division I college football. Volunteer firefighters contribute to communities and do a different job. But the same as an urban firefighter? No, not even close. When I was doing municipal coverage in New Jersey, some of these guys would say they could do as well as the Newark Fire Department. I asked how many times they would have four or five calls on a 14-hour night shift.

 

Covering the Green Bay Packers for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is a better job than covering the Packers for the Green Bay Press-Gazette because more people read the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and because it generates more revenue, pays better.