Salary survey

yup, on all counts.

 

I got my first full-time job at 19, about a year out of high school, then went to full-time freelancing, then took time to do the college thing (all the while continuing to work as a stringer), so I don't know really how much "experience" you can say I had. If you count back to when I wrote my first articles, for a local community weekly (and for free), it's been 15 years.

In that case, it's kinda pathetic how much I make now. It's a byproduct of continual self-inflicted wounds, sadly.

 

W-b, you beat me to this one. I find this fascinating. And depressing.

My departure from journalism allowed me to jump up one category on the list. It's frustrating to see how poorly newspapers continue to pay their "professionals."

 

Well I just started and I make 23,000 and I still live paycheck to paycheck.

Then again it's probably a multitude of things that don't help. College debt, stupid college credit card debt, car payments, etc. When you have a billion bills each month that paycheck dwindles quickly. That and I'm young and probably haven't learn to budget properly yet.

 

A more interesting survey would be to compare news reporters to sports reporters and news editors to sports editors.

 

Tell me about it man: I'm lucky enough to be in the higher section (23/$42K w freelance) and I still can't pay for shit...
I need to learn how to budget my money sometime, but damn is it hard. Guitar Hero was just so damn tempting...

 

Why? I'm news and I'm on the low end of my year-range, according to the poll. I always knew I was underpaid - it's the price I paid to get from a crappy paper to a good paper - but it's depressing to see it on paper.

We're all in the same boat, bob.

 

Agreed. I did hiring on both sides. The pay is similar; all reporters, desk people and managers generally fall into the same "pay grades" newsroom-wide. If anything, in the shops where I worked, the sports reporters and columnists tended to be at the higher ends of those pay grades than equivalent news-siders.

 

Starting my 12th year in the biz, I'm 35, and I'm making right at 30K. I've mentioned this before: left my old paper (CNHI) six years ago for a near 10K pay raise at my current stop. I should note I've gotten raises (albeit small ones) at my current stop every year since I started.

 

11-15 (although just a couple full-time), 45-60.

 

Knowing how much I make in seven years in the business - I'm almost 25 by the way - just reinforces my belief that it'd be nice to find a woman who shares some interests with me ... and is a doctor.

 

Wow. Pretty much describes my situation, too. Been in the biz 21 years, the last 11 here. Still low 40s. God I love my wife