Low journalism salaries are nothing new. In 1927, students who graduated from the Pulitzer School of Journalism at Columbia University were making a little more than $25 a week working for newspapers. The reporter remains for the most part an ill-paid, anonymous drudge, lured into the work by the promise of excitement and distinction...," longtime newspaper journalist Silas Bent wrote then in his critical book, Ballyhoo.

Has anything really changed in 70 years?

A wide range of recent academic and industry surveys concludes what journalists already know — salaries are low and the outlook for major improvement is bleak. Yet there are a few signs of hope for journalists struggling to survive economically. This report will summarize some of the key findings of several studies involving salaries of journalists.

Journalists’ views

Ronny Whitworth doesn’t need a study to tell him journalist salaries are low. He took a job this year as a sports reporter for the Crawfordsville (Ind.) Journal-Review after graduating from Indiana University with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and political science. He was making about $17,000 a year. He quit after two and a half months. For the amount of work I was putting in, I didn’t get compensated nearly enough," he said. Instead he took a job as a co-editor of a new sports magazine called Inside Wisconsin. He’s guaranteed a salary of $23,000 with the chance to earn a lot more depending on the success of the magazine, he said. Whitworth said he knew he would never make as much money in journalism as he would in other fields. If you want to be in this business, you have to make some sacrifices."

Even those who start out earning more than average think journalists deserve more pay. Bob Driehaus started at $27,300 a year at the Kentucky Post in Covington after he was hired right out of Indiana University in May 1996. He’s currently making $31,200 at the unionized paper. "I’m very pleased with it. It’s a lot more than I anticipated," he said. But he also knows that journalism salaries could be better. "I think they are inordinately low given our level of education and the product we put out." He continued, Given the profits that newspaper companies make, more of that profit should come down to the reporters and photographers, instead of the stockholders."

Low salaries in journalism continue to puzzle those who have studied the issue.

David Weaver, Roy W. Howard Research Professor at Indiana University’s School of Journalism and co-author of The American Journalist in the 1990s, told SPJ for this report that it is ironic that journalists’ salaries have not increased more in a time when many news media are making high profits and benefitting from the advantages of new technologies.

Even though many journalists in his 1992 national study were less concerned about salaries than about the performance of their news organizations, Weaver said there is little hope of retaining the best and brightest in journalism without decent salaries and adequate resources for reporting. If the efficiency experts’ and the accountants are the ones in charge of America’s major news organizations — as I fear they are in many cases — the quality of news that we as citizens receive is bound to decline," Weaver said.

Lee B. Becker, director of the Cox Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research at the University of Georgia, told SPJ that students who consider the data will realize the starting salaries of journalists are low. Journalism majors know that going into newswork is not the most lucrative thing one can do with the skills learned in a journalism program." Becker, who while at Ohio State University for many years has studied salaries of journalism graduates nationally, added, That’s something that the industry can either recognize or ignore."

Vernon Stone, journalism professor emeritus at the University of Missouri-Columbia who has documented how broadcast news salaries fail to keep up with inflation, has severely criticized companies that do not pay adequate salaries in order to make more money. He said in one report that the profit motive may be running amok. People are too often sacrificed for the greater good of profits.... It’s easy for a manager under pressure for profits to forget that the instruments of those profits are not balance sheets or robots. They’re people, professionals who deserve to be paid as such."

Betty Medsger, author of a 1996 Freedom Forum report, Winds of Change: Challenges Confronting Journalism Education, has written that students going into journalism need to realize that it often involves a virtual vow of poverty." She says in her report that the starting salaries in journalism are a source of continuing consternation and shame to journalism teachers and of profound discouragement to journalism students." Medsger, a freelance writer and journalism education consultant, told SPJ that she doesn’t think much has changed since she wrote the report. The real problem is with the youngest group of journalists, those working at the small print and broadcast news organizations." She added, What the numbers don’t reflect are the likely significant number who, because of educational loan and family commitments, simply find it impossible to enter a profession that has such low starting salaries."

William B. Blankenburg, a professor of journalism and mass communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, wrote in the Spring 1996 edition of Nieman Reports that starting journalists make less than half of what a beginning engineer makes in the Silicon Valley. Is it unfair to compare the prospects of journalists with engineers? Perhaps, except that both have professional training and both believe they can change the world. The difference is, I think, that journalists can change it for the better."

What follows is a summary of several studies concerning journalism salaries:

The starting salaries of recent journalism and mass communication bachelor’s degree recipients have been keeping pace with inflation, according to the Annual Survey of Journalism and Mass Communication Graduates conducted each year by the School of Journalism at Ohio State University. The latest study shows the median salary for 1996 graduates with a full-time job six to eight months after graduation was $21,500 — about 3.3 percent higher than the $20,800 received by 1995 graduates. That increase matches the inflation rate. Prior to that, the salaries for new bachelor’s degree graduates had exceeded the inflation rate for two years in a row.

Master’s degree recipients in 1996 earned a median salary of $28,800 — a 1 percent increase from 1995.

Looking at specific media, new graduates at daily newspapers earned a median salary of $20,800 in 1996, down from $21,970 in 1995; weekly newspaper salaries were $18,200, up from $17,000; radio salaries were $18,000, up from $17,000; and TV salaries were $17,500, down from $18,000.

Journalists’ salaries improved somewhat over a 10-year period — 1981 to 1991 — according to a survey of American journalists by David H. Weaver and G. Cleveland Wilhoit of Indiana University. They found that the median income of full-time journalists increased from $19,000 in 1981 to $31,297 in 1991. While the increase exceeded the rise in the Consumer Price Index, journalists still did not have the relative buying power they had in the late 1960s. The median journalist had about $4,000 less in purchasing power in 1991 than one had 21 years earlier with a median salary of $11,133. In their book The American Journalist in the 1990s: U.S. News People at the End of an Era, Weaver and Wilhoit reported considerable disparities among journalists at different media. Those at news magazines had the most substantial median salary increase from 1981 to 1991 — a 90 percent gain that brought them to $66,071. Daily newspaper journalists had their median salaries increase to $35,180. Broadcast personnel and weekly newspaper journalists had smaller gains in salary than those in other media. Those in TV had a median income of $25,625, those in radio made $20,357 and those in weekly newspapers made $20,865.

Weaver and Wilhoit said journalists’ salaries have failed to keep up with other occupations. The 1991 median of $31,297 was below the income of comparably educated accountants — nonsupervisory management accountants made $37,000 and internal auditors made $36,800. Technical writers and editors working for the federal government earned $36,897. The median salary in the field of public relations was $46,556. It seems clear, then, that journalists’ income during the inflationary years of the 1970s lagged more than did salaries in other comparable occupations," wrote Weaver and Wilhoit.

A few other findings:

* Geographic differences in salary were considerable. Journalists in the West became the highest paid of the four regions, making a median of $39,306. The lowest paid region was the North Central, at $26,964.

* Older journalists improved their salaries more than younger journalists. Journalists 55 and older had a median salary of $40,333, which made them the most highly paid age group. But Weaver and Wilhoit said recent buy-out" programs at large media made the prospects for retaining the gains bleak.

* The salaries of male and female journalists’ became more even. Overall median salaries for women in 1991 were 81 percent of those for men, but when experience in journalism was factored in, the gender disparity nearly disappeared. In fact, when other factors such as type of medium and size of news organization were considered, less than one percent of the variation in salary could be explained by gender.

Salaries outpaced inflation in radio and television news in 1996 according to the RTNDF/Ball State University Survey. Aided by continued expansion of local television news, more opportunities in cable news and more news start ups, 1996 was another good year for radio and television salaries," wrote researchers Bob Papper, Michael Gerhard and Joe Misiewicz in the RTNDA Communicator.

Median salaries ranged from $40,000 to $50,000 for TV news directors, assistant news directors, executive producers and managing editors. Assignment editors had a median salary of $26,000 while producers had a median of $24,000. The median salary for news anchors was $44,000. The median for reporters was $22,000. Researchers noted that the range for TV salaries is enormous depending on the size of staff and market. Television stations in the West were more likely to pay the highest salaries, followed closely by the Northeast. Midwest stations lagged far behind and the South paid the least.

In radio, news directors had a median salary of $23,000 and reporters were at $20,000. The median is a better gauge of salaries being paid than the mean (average) because of the wide range of salaries.

According to the 1997 NAB/BCFM Television Employee Compensation and Fringe Benefits Report, salaries in television news vary greatly depending on the size of market. In the top 10 markets, for instance, a news director at an station affiliated with ABC, CBS, Fox or NBC makes an average of $154,971 a year, a news anchor makes $313,712, a news producer makes $61,776 and a news reporter makes $109,664. In markets smaller than 150th, a news director makes an average of $45,743, a news anchor makes $28,172, a news producer makes $19,237 and a news reporter makes $18,105.

For all markets and all stations, the average salary for a news director is $73,298, a news anchor is $71,937, a news producer is $28,433 and a news reporter is $33,223.

The lower paid staff in broadcast newsrooms generally lost buying power in the first half of the 1990s, according to research by Vernon Stone, journalism professor emeritus at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Increases in salaries at the lowest paying

Table Four

stations didn’t keep up with the Consumer Price Index (CPI). But average salaries of the best paid TV news directors, news anchors and reporters — those in the 50 largest markets — increased at a higher rate than inflation. Average radio news salaries increased more than inflation in markets of more than 1 million listeners, but lost buying power in other markets.

The salary gap between the high and low paid keeps getting wider — at a rate faster than the normal widening to be expected from across-the-board percentage gains," Stone said in a report on his website. Stone said that if an average middle-market TV producer were keeping up with the CPI, she would have been making about $26,600 in 1997, instead of the actual $24,500. That lost $2,100 hurts at the checkout counters."

Stone says people are too often sacrificed for the greater good of profits. In the financial world, a corporation announces massive layoffs, and the price of its stock goes up. The restructuring promises greater profits. In broadcast news, a station underpays its reporters, photographers and producers, and overhead stays down while profits go up."

Stone urges a major infusion of salary. At hundreds of stations, even a moderate shift in priorities from profits to people would enable paychecks to keep up with market baskets."

Reporters at small newspapers on their first job out of college earned an average starting salary of $16,564 in 1997, according to an annual survey of newspaper editors of dailies with a circulation under 25,000. Mike Shelly, assistant professor of communications at Illinois State University, has been conducting the annual survey since 1986. He told Editor & Publisher that new newspaper

Table Five

reporters are probably making less than new hires at radio stations. The average starting salary for newspaper reporters at small dailies was $15,500 in 1986, he said. So it really hasn’t budged over more than 10 years."

The study found that 26 of the 50 editors who responded to the question said starting reporters at their papers made between $16,000 and $19,999. The same number of respondents said reporters were making between $16,000 and $19,999 after one year as well. But the study found that reporters can usually expect a 10 percent raise after a year on the job, according to Editor and Publisher.

Copy editors earn about $2,500 more than reporters. Their average starting salary was $19,085. Of the 29 respondents to that question, 11 said the starting salary of copy editors was between $16,000 and $19,999, followed by nine who said the salary was between $20,000 and $24,999. Two reported salaries of more than $25,000. Only one responding editor reported a starting salary of more than $25,000 for new reporters.

About 30 percent of responding editors said the standard of living has worsened in the past 20 years for newspaper journalists. About 28 percent said it has improved.

New journalists are more educated than any previous group of journalists, yet they are among the lowest paid of any college-educated workers, according to a 1996 Freedom Forum report by Betty Medsger. Average annual starting salaries are $20,154. About 22 percent of new journalists 25 and under earn less than $15,000, according to a survey of 1,041 print and broadcast journalists conducted for the study by the Roper Center. An additional 35 percent of those journalists make between $15,000 and $20,000. This means that more than half — 57 percent — of all journalists age 25 and under make less than $20,000," she wrote in the report, Winds of Change: Challenges Confronting Journalism Education. About 70 percent of journalism educators said low salaries were an important reason why student interest in journalism has declined over the past 10 years.

Medsger said newsroom employers may not understand the growing impact of the low salaries. An increasing number of large news organizations are starting to offer low salaries and no benefits. Some offer only internships or part-time jobs to new graduates, often without benefits or a realistic chance of full-time employment. It has long been popular for older journalists and some teachers to tell students that journalism, unlike many other fields, is a calling," a special kind of work that involves dedicated service to finding and reporting the truth about many facets of public life. Regrettably, students now need to realize that this calling, like being a priest or nun, can involve, at least in the early years, a virtual vow of poverty."

Medsger said many new journalists would improve their economic situation by becoming waiters and waitresses. The low salaries aren’t just with the young and inexperienced. About 25 percent of new journalists age 26-30 earn less than $20,000 a year, and 12 percent of those age 31-40 earn less than $20,000. The lowest salaries were in broadcast journalism, weekly newspapers and at small dailies. The highest salaries are earned by those at medium-sized and large dailies. Medsger also found that studying journalism at the undergraduate level does not increase income. In fact, it may hurt it. New journalists of all ages who make under $20,000 a year include: 23 percent of those with undergraduate journalism majors; 32 percent who had a journalism minor or a few journalism courses; 23 percent who never studied journalism; and 12 percent who studied journalism at the master’s degree level. Those who earn more than $40,000 a year include: 34 percent of those who studied journalism at the master’s degree level; 28 percent who never studied journalism; 19 percent with undergraduate journalism majors; and 16 percent who had a journalism minor or a few courses in journalism.

The Roper survey also found that 43 percent of the new journalists say they might leave journalism. About 31 percent of those who said they might leave cited low pay as a factor. The next closest reason was the long hours, which was cited by 8 percent. About 47 percent of those who make less than $20,000 a year cited low pay as a reason for possibly leaving journalism. About 72 percent of newsroom recruiters and supervisors indicated that low pay was a major reason for people to leave journalism, and 23 percent said it was a minor reason.

Medsger concluded that the next generation of new journalists is being discouraged by low beginning salaries from making a full commitment to journalism. A profession that has believed it would always have an endless supply of young people at the door, begging to get in, may soon find itself without an ample next generation. Young journalists are being driven out by low salaries and by a management attitude that doesn’t build for the future, even as older journalists are being forced and encouraged to retire early."

The Newspaper Guild reports that the top minimum salary average for reporters covered by Guild contracts increased 5.05 percent in 1997. The average top minimum salary on April 1, 1997, was $745.73 a week, or $38,778 a year, up from $740.68 a week, or $38,515 a year, on April 1, 1996. In 1946, Guild reporters earned $61.67 a week, or $3,207 a year.

From 1980 to 1997, reporter top minimum

Table Seven

increased the most at the New York Times. It increased $698.18 a week, from $585.05 to $1,283.23. The top minimum works out to be $66,728 a year at the Times. The smallest increase during that same time period was reported at the Battle Creek (Mich.) Enquirer. There the top minimum increased $10 a week, from $336 to $346, or $17,992 a year. The average increase in top minimum pay among all Guild papers since 1980 was $440.73 a week, or $22,918 a year.

Starting minimums for reporters and photographers in 101 contracts as of April 1, 1997, ranged from $1,254 a week, or $65,208 a year, at the New York Times, to $184 a week, or $9,568 a year, at the Battle Creek Enquirer. The average starting salary was $477.56 a week, or $24,833 a year.

Newspaper reporters’ entry-level salaries rose 4.9 percent, according to the 1997 Newspaper Industry Compensation Survey (NICS) administered by Inland Press Association. Top newspaper management positions also saw an increase in average base salaries, with circulation executives leading the survey with a 9.1 percent increase.

For reporters, entry-level salaries ranged from $10,816 to $43,504, with an average of $21,983. The Pacific Region was the highest paying region with an average of $23,951, while the Western Midwest was the lowest, with an average of $20,094.

Salaries for circulation executives and others were not available. Inland this year stopped releasing detailed information about the NICS, a comprehensive survey that allows newspapers to compare compensation levels geographically, by circulation size and with the newspaper industry as a whole. On its website, only a few details were released. Top advertising executives saw an 8.4 percent increase in base pay, while publishers saw the smallest increase, gaining 0.3 percent.

According to the 1996 survey, which was released to Presstime magazine, publishers at the 331 reporting newspapers had an average base pay of $127,344, with average total compensation of $161,769. The range for base pay was $36,000 to $510,000 with a median of $108,000. The range for total compensation was $36,000 to $766,184, with a median of $126,488. Editors had an average base pay of $82,297, with average total compensation of $94,920. The range for base pay was $16,500 to $267,504, with a median of $71,000. The range for total compensation was $16,500 to $432,419, with a median of $75,925.

Newspaper journalists often complain about poor salaries and benefits. In a 1996 survey of 1,037 newspaper journalists analyzed by Paul Voakes, assistant professor of journalism at Indiana University, 23 percent listed low pay and benefits" as their biggest complaint with their job. That wasn’t much of an improvement from a 1988 survey, when salary was the biggest complaint of 25 percent. Voakes, in the report, The Newspaper Journalists of the 90s," for the American Society of Newspaper Editors, said low pay is more of a concern for reporters and copy editors than for other positions, and it also is more of a concern for journalists 30 and under than for older journalists.

Improve compensation" also is the second-highest priority for journalists, behind newsroom staffing. Money is also the top reason for journalists wanting to leave newspapers, cutting across all age, gender, ethnic and job groups. It was cited by 26 percent of the respondents, down from 32 percent in 1988. Voakes says money concerns rank particularly high at smaller papers. About 35 percent of journalists at papers of less than 50,000 circulation list low pay and benefits" as their biggest complaint, while 18 percent say so at papers above 50,000 circulation. About 32 percent of the journalists at smaller papers say money is the main reason they would leave journalism, while it is cited by 24 percent of those at larger papers. About 30 percent of the journalists at the smaller papers list improve compensation and benefits" as their No. 1 priority for improving newsroom working conditions, while that is the top choice for 19 percent of the journalists at larger newspapers.

A study by Lee B. Becker, Vernon A. Stone, and Joseph D. Graph concludes that an oversupply of labor in radio news, television news and daily newspapers helps keep salaries low. For radio jobs in 1990-91, the researchers estimated the 3.29 persons were seeking each radio job available. In TV the ratio was 9.9 to 1 while at daily newspapers the ratio was 4.18 to 1. The numbers were further broken down into extra-qualified and highly qualified persons depending on curriculum specialization, internships and campus media experience. Regardless of the criteria, TV was found to have an excess supply of applicants. The data supports the argument that TV does not have to pay high wages because supply exceeds demand. A smaller oversupply was found in newspapers, but if newspapers want highly qualified graduates, then demand exceeds supply. That could explain the higher wages in newspapers compared with television. In radio, wages are the lowest while it also has the lowest ratios of supply to demand. The researchers say no evidence exists to support the argument that newspapers have to pay higher salaries to compensate for the attractiveness of broadcasting because all three areas have adequate supplies of graduates. It does seem reasonable, however, that the gross excess supply in television serves to hold down salaries in the newsrooms."

The Michigan State University Collegiate Employment Research Institute placed journalism majors at the bottom of its list of estimated starting salaries for college graduates in 1996-97. Journalism students with a bachelor’s degree could expect a starting salary of $22,102, while telecommunication students did just a bit better, with a salary of $22,447. That was just a little over half of what chemical engineering students could expect to earn — $42,758. Salaries for journalism majors ranked lower than majors in home economics, liberal arts, hotel-restaurant management and retailing in MSU’s annual national sample of employers.

L. Patrick Scheetz, director of the research institute, said both journalism graduates and employers who have seen the results have told him that the anticipated starting salary for journalism graduates is higher than they expect. While graduates are getting salaries about equal to the average, employers have said that average is about $3,000 to $5,000 higher than they are offering. Big cities are exceptions," Scheetz said.

The average starting salary for journalists is put at $16,000 a year by the Princeton Review, and $25,000 after five years and $55,000 after 10 to 15 years. How that information was gathered wasn’t specified at the Princeton Review’s website.

An annual survey by the Indiana University Business Placement Office found that journalism majors who received bachelor’s degrees from Indiana University in the past year had an average annual salary of $29,930, with salaries ranging from $22,000 to $40,800 in 1996-97. The median was at $30,000. Journalism graduates, however, find jobs in many fields outside of journalism. Average salaries for selected other majors who earned bachelor’s degrees were: accounting, $32,015; finance, $33,257; economics, $34,453; psychology, $32,194; education, $31,143; and health, physical education and recreation, $26,500.

In a 1997 survey of its 1993 graduates, the Indiana University School of Journalism found that about 57 percent said their first jobs had starting salaries of less than $20,000. About 21 percent earned less than $15,000. About 15 percent reported starting salaries of $25,000 or more on their first jobs. Regarding their current jobs, about 44 percent reported starting salaries of more than $30,000.

The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) reports that journalism majors actually saw a slight decline in the average salary offer being made to new graduates. In the association’s April 1997 Salary Survey" report, journalism majors were offered an average of $22,651, down 1.1 percent from the $22,897 reported in September 1996. The survey compiles reports from 343 career planning and placement offices of U.S. colleges and universities. The salary offers are a representative sample of job offers made to bachelor’s degree candidates.

The salary offers for reporting jobs — regardless of the students’ majors — also saw a decline, from $19,632 in September 1996 to $17,266 in April 1997.

The report states that many graduates in other fields are seeing significant salary increases because of a growing demand for entry-level hires, especially in technical fields. Computer and information sciences graduates, for instance, average $36,666, up 7.8 percent and computer engineers average $39,047, up 4 percent. At the top are chemical engineers, with an average of $42,450, an increase of 2.4 percent.

On its website (www.jobweb.org/), the association reports that technology graduates are becoming much more in demand. More and more companies are looking for graduates to computerize their operations," said Marilyn Mackes, executive director of NACE. Humanities and social sciences graduates posted modest gains at best.

One bright spot for journalism graduates is the growing need for online content developers and web masters. Both jobs were among the 20 hot job tracks" cited by U.S. News & World Report in its 1996 Career Guide. The number of electronic newspapers has increased dramatically in the past few years. Online content developers produce and organize stories as well as repackage previously published information. They also host chat sessions with readers and update information throughout the day. The starting salaries average $25,000 to $35,000 a year while the midlevel is about $50,000 and the top level is $80,000, according to the magazine.

Web masters design and maintain World Wide Web sites. They oversee graphics and editorial content of the home page and oversee technical decisions. The entry level salary averages about $50,000, while the midlevel is $75,000 and the senior level is $100,000 and up, according to U.S. News & World Report.

An article by Christina Ianzito in Columbia Journalism Review said a window of opportunity exists for the first generation of online journalists. One survey said the new media industry employs 71,500 people in New York, with 40,000 to 120,000 new jobs expected through 1988. These jobs will include programmers, designers, and administrators, but there’s plenty of room for eager, techno-savvy journalists," Ianzito wrote. But she also cited differing views on how much of an opportunity there will be. Only 8 percent of people go online for news once a week or more, and online journalism still isn’t making a profit. She quotes Dean Brent Baker at Boston University’s school of communication as saying journalism students need to move into a new dimension. Boston University’s print graduates are making $20,000 while those in the new media are making $45,000 to $65,000 a year.