Will this business ever wise up and pay better?

I think he's trying to say that someone here doesn't have a job in journalism, and has been reduced to delivering pizzas. Which, in turn, would explain some of the bitterness toward the industry.

I think that's what you're saying, right, mustard?

 

I shouldn't have contributed to yet another DP threadjacking, so I'll let it speak for itself. Don't want any more angry PMs from Moddy.

 

Thanks for sharing, dunce.

 

Jersey Guy: I don't remember being really ticked off at you (at least under your current screen name), so I suppose it was a reasonable discussion. I think some of your advice people should listen to and take to heart.

That said, there are some points on which I disagree with you, but you do make some good points.

It is correct - and I'm not sure if this was your exact point - that no matter how bad pay, supervisors, conditions are at a paper, some people will never make a real and effective effort to leave. I have seen that in and out of newspapers for 35 years. You are right that you have to be flexible.

If people are willing to go to the desk, the possibility for better pay and advancement increase substantially. But in a sports department, that can be an office job with bad hours. Few people take a journalism major with the idea of being a mid-level editor who never gets a chance to write.

Your point about moving has some validity, but that can be a good or a bad move. You pay moving expenses to take a job which doesn't pay a reasonable wage, and you fall behind. It also makes a difference whether your family has resources where if you fail you can be supported or if you are in a family with rough economic circumstances. If the latter is the case, that makes considering the move a bad experience.

Yes, some people do make it successfully in the business. There are sports writers making six-figure incomes. But the number of jobs which offer "middle class" incomes seems to be declining. In 1999 you had nine years of experience and that might have been the best job market in decades. After 2001, the typical thing was 2 and 3 percent raises. If you had graduated later, it might be a different situation and if you had graduated in the last three years, you might be fortunate to have a job.

Talent has little to do with success beyond the entry-level situations where there are people who flat out can't write. Are you telling me there aren't 100 people who are as talented as Mike Lupica? or Dick Young? or Mitch Album?

The point is, people are not being treated and paid fairly. The law of supply-and-demand indicates that at all but the largest papers, desk people would generally make more than writers. However, if that gap is too large there are problems as an organization. First of all, it means you are treating writers with a lack of respect - you are paying them in such a way which means they aren't as important within your organization and when they represent your newspaper with coaches and administrators.

The problem is that in the newspaper business, poor pay is looked upon as a proud tradition. On the jobs board, I see people talking about this small paper or that mid-sized paper as being a great place to start or a good first step. The problem is there are a lot of great "first steps" and not great newspapers.

 

I'm guessing that the people who embrace the poor pay as proud tradition broke out and made much better money at later job. I don't see too many older people bragging that they made $20k when they started and make only $23k after 10 years of service.

 

Maybe in some areas, definitely not here. In Ontario, the teaching grid basically ensures that if they teach 10 years, they're at $80,000 a year now. That's not principalship or head of department or anything special, just teaching.

In this profession, you'd pretty much have to be on the fast track to the major metro daily to have a prayer of making anywhere near that within 10 years.

 

No doubt, this is the point on which we differ most. I'm no great Lupica/Albom fan, but no, there AREN'T 100 people who are as talented. You don't have a whole lot of people with major-metro columnist skills toiling away on the lower levels.

Your problem here is in nuance. There ARE a lot of people who can turn out a column twice a week. And it will be readable. But there are a lot of people who hit the wall when it comes to being able to come up with that little turn of a phrase, that clear delineation of a point, which sets the best apart from the rest.

If you have somebody at a 40K who can do that, he/she will be able to move up.

 

We'd probably be paid better if there were a measurable correlation between our work and the bottom line, but there isn't. And someday publishers will understand that even big names do not boost our bottom line. Not that it's the fault of the big names, some of whom work very hard and produce brilliant work. Just the way it is. Our newspapers succeed or fail on our collective efforts, not on individual ones.

 

But I think that's changing, Frank.

With the new "most viewed" and "most e-mailed" features on newspaper websites, it's going to become increasingly clear who's popular-- and consequently who's worth the big bucks.

 

Jersey Guy: I may disagree with your points, but the one thing where I can say you certainly are wrong is your math. 10 percent of 150 would be 15, so we are talking about 135 who are not in the group. That doesn't affect your point.

I think our previous discussion dealt with you saying sportswriting is a talent, while I say it is a craft. When I string for a high school football game, I tell people anybody can do that but the reason I get paid is because I can do it in 30 minutes or less. It's somewhat of an exaggeration, but my point is that it is a skill which can be learned.

Yeah, for a writing opening on a major beat, you will get 150 resumes. So what of the other 135?

Well, you said yourself some people will get good gigs regardless of their shortcomings. Some will get better. For the sake of a friendly argument, we will say a second 10 percent will get better and are capable. That brings 30 people (and I think it is a lot more) who are capable of doing the job, who have the talent. If you have 30 people who can do a job, it isn't talent that is rare. If it's not rare, it's not talent.

If it was talent, you would have a lot more people from families with economically disadvantaged backgrounds involved in sports writing.

If it was talent, you would have the talented people rising to the top at a very young age.

If it was talent, why does Mike Lupica, who has written lame books on sports, have more talent than Mark Kriegel, who wrote a great biography of Joe Namath.

If it is talent, how do Mike Lupica and Mitch Albom (both of whom have written non-sports books) rank among general writers? If you or I submitted the same work, would it be accepted? I remember reading of an experiment where an early published novel of Jerzy Kozinski (sp?) was submitted to 26 publishers. It was rejected by all 26 publishers, and none of them recognized it as plagarism.

 

Some more points:

Of the 120 people who don't stand out, some work at places where they never were taught anything or worked with people who weren't good writers and/or teachers. Some get pigeonholed, some are moved to the desk, and some give up after dealing with the frustration of low pay and lack of opportunity. To use professional sports as an example, in the 1950s and 1960s there were professional athletes who would retire because they reached a point where they didn't make that much more than if they worked at another job. This was true in the NBA where a lot of players had college degrees. Another example was Jackie Robinson, who decided he didn't want to play for the New York Giants and he retired. He certainly could have been a productive player for a year or two after he retired, but the money wasn't there. Today, he would have stayed because there wouldn't have been another job where he could make a seven-figure salary.

Here's something I would relate it to - singing talent. Dreamgirls is a perfect illustration - the one with the great voice isn't the lead singer because there is somebody with great looks. To me, that sums up why Lupica and Albom succeed - it's hype over substance. It's marketing - and maybe that's the real talent.

 

I think this is why I'm finding more and more medium-talent people staying in one place rather than making the previously common steps up. Their stuff might not be quite good enough to merit an interview at a bigger place, but the quality of life is fine where they are. This hurts people trying to move up to that level, of course, so that generation might need to find different ways to reach higher goals.