Pay for pro beat writers

Ummmm.... It was an extra k.

 

I am not 100 percent sure about this but an NFL beat reporter can make between $60-$100.000 dollars a year. But remember that the NFL is the hardest beat to get.

The above has also a lot to do with circulation, size of market etc.

 

Some of it depends on your past history, not just pro beat experience but how much you got paid at your last stop, how much you were able to squeeze out of your willing-to-spend (ha!) publisher, etc. etc.

You can guess, say, 70K. That might be right on the money for one, 20K low for another and 25K high for another. And we all know that talent isn't exactly the end-all variable.

 

This is a little off topic, but has anyone else found it harder to negotiate lately?

We're being asked to do more and more things --blogging, audio/visual stuff, filing multiple stories throught the day -- yet when the topic of a raise comes up, it's like our bosses are saying we should all just be happy to have a job.

Yes, I know the industry is crumbling. But part of me thinks that's a really convenient excuse for management to use to keep slashing salaries or keeping them in check. I just read the financial reports for my shop, and while we're bleeding subscribers, it also said profits were up like 13 percent because of a decline in operating expenses. Hmmm....

Anyway, sorry for the threadjack. I was just wondering if anyone else had a similar take.

 

$60 a year? damn, must have some badass trust fund they're living off!

 

Well, I can't even negotiate for a raise until my piece of shit company decides its employees are worth more than ... wait for it ... a ONE PERCENT RAISE. That's the only offer they've made in three years of negotiating. We've agreed on everything else. And until a contract's signed, we can't even get that. So either we fold for one percent, or we continue to get no raises.

This. Industry. Sucks.

 

Depends on where you're at. Some places, 60k is just fine. Others it's paycheck-to-paycheck living. I'd say 60-100k is probably a pretty fair number if you're going to get into "ballparking" it. But yeah, there are plenty of smaller metros that will pay less and a handful of big dogs that will pay more.

 

I think that was a smarmy comment about SIXTY dollars, not sixty thousand dollars.

 

As many have mentioned here already, it's difficult to put numbers to a range based on a variety of factors, including size of paper, that paper's organization, market size, reporter's experience level, yada yada yada. But for the sake of furthering the discussion, here's what I know. Small papers with staff writers covering pro beats on a full-time basis could be as little as $30K but likely would be a bit more. Move up to a metro paper in a small market and you're looking at about a $60K baseline. In a major metro market, it probably begins at about $80k, but star reporters can easily reach six figures. Latch on at a major website and you'll have to pay your own benefits, but the range begins at about $150K and rocket skyward, say, $300K and more. Those jobs are broader, of course, covering an entire league, not just a team.

So let the naysaying begin. Before you nitpick, though, please know that these numbers aren't hard and fast, but they are factually based.

 

That too, dammit!

 

About 20 years ago, a copy editor in our news room used to have a ball on stuff like that. Somebody would write "from $5-$10 million" and he'd go ape shit! He'd post it for everybody to see. "JESUS, FIVE DOLLARS TO 10 MILLION? THAT'S A HELL OF A RANGE." Made me laugh and wince at the same time.

 

Your figures are way too generous. A general rule, no matter what the market size is anywhere between 45k and 85k and the 85K is really on the high end of the scale.