Pay at a small town daily

The funny thing is if sports writers expect to get paid $11-13 an hour, newspaper will pay it. Supply and demand.

 

This seems about right to me, and contours to what I've been paid.

 

You must have worked at a pretty good small-town daily. I was paid less than $10 when I worked at a paper in Frankfort. Starting pay for interns was $9; I started out at $9.50 and was making $9.80 when I left.

 

The 100,000+ circulation paper I worked for (fortunately, as a full-timer) paid part-timers about $11 an hour as recently as a year ago. To think a 10K-20K newspaper would pay the same seems a stretch.

 

Depends on the area. $11 in eastern Tennessee is a far different animal than $11 in midtown Manhattan. It's not unreasonable that a small paper in a large and expensive metro would pay "more" than a relatively large paper in a cheaper part of the country.

 

$11 an hour is more than my paper is paying for its reporters who have been here several years, presuming they work a standard work week, which I can assure you they often do more than. I've never said we pay well though.

 

When I got married and moved to Iowa, I lined up a freelancing gig with the local Gannett-owned daily. I met with the SE, filled out the paperwork and all that jazz. As I head out, he mentions the pay is $40 a story. I had been getting $50/story back in the Northwest, though the cost of living is higher than the Midwest. I soon started freelancing for a bigger paper up the road for $75 (I think) per story.

 

It says a lot about supply and demand that the going rate for stringers seems to be $40 (or even less) per game.

When I started out in 1994, I was getting $40/game from The Daily Herald in suburban Chicago. Of course, the news side only gave me $30 to sit through city council meetings ...

Last time I checked, everything cost a bit more in 2011 than in 1994. Especially gas, which is your main expense as a stringer.

 

Pay where I used to be an SE was $25 a story when I started there 13 years ago ... and was the same when I left there a few years ago (but I would slip in a mileage allowance).

They still pay $25. No mileage anymore, either.

 

Pfft...I work at about a 30k daily and get nowhere near $11-13 an hour.

 

$50-$75 is pretty standard around here...I'll do it for $50 if I'm going to be there anyway, if it's a special trip to cover something I ask $75.

Anything under $50 really isn't worth your time by the time you travel, watch the event and write it up. Also, charge separately if you're offering photos with the package.

 

It was (and still is) a decently-managed paper in southern New England, so maybe. I do know that getting a raise from the $25k/year level is nearly impossible - some of my co-workers had been there more than five years and were still making less than $30k. They also had done furloughs and across-the-board pay cuts, so I'm guessing they just didn't gut the initial pay for people.