A Recent Fact Check Gets to the Truth About Journalism and Money
“They [American journalists] don’t care about these issues,” said Batya Ungar-Sargon, deputy opinion editor of Newsweek. Ungar-Sargon had just finished talking about a shortage of baby formula, inflation, and gas prices on Fox News. She said the media would never cover the problems accurately. But why?
She explained:
“And the reason they don’t care about these issues is because they are not struggling with these issues. American journalists are part of the elites. They are rich. They are not out there, struggling to pay for gas. They are not living in crime-ridden cities. Those are their neighbors who they don’t care about, who they abandoned when they stopped being working class and became part of the elites.”
Journalists’ incomes in all 50 states vary, but the average salary for a journalist on record borders on $47,000 a year. By contrast, the average salary for behind-the-camera positions on Fox News goes well above $50,000 annually.
FROM WHERE DOES THIS POINT OF VIEW ORIGINATE?
This particular one came by way of a fact check of statements made by Fox News that had been commissioned by the Poynter Institute of Media Studies. The organization notes that Fox News has reiterated this perspective in its prior news coverage. Fox News personality Tucker Carlson, for instance, often uses the word “elites” during his evening segments, such as when he erroneously declared that “elites are using identity politics to preserve the class system.” To hear Carlson tell it, the “rich elite” – a group from which he excludes himself – comprises a monstrous body of callous people who are secretly in control of the entire world. This point of view tends to exclude groups who don’t typically agree with Fox News, including college students, people who live in major cities, and teachers, teachers, who probably make even less than journalists.
ARE JOURNALISTS LIVING LARGE?
The estimated cost of living in New York City, the country’s largest media center, for a family of four per month totals around $7,000. Of the $84,000 it takes to live a year in New York City supporting a family of four, the average journalist will only bring in $44,506 – which, as it turns out, is the average annual salary for journalists in New York. Ungar-Sagron could afford that cost of living 35 times over solely with her net worth. Even the highest paying job in another field of journalism – editing for radio broadcasting – is $79,000, which is still not enough to support a family of four in New York City.
WHY MAKE THIS CLAIM IF IT CAN BE EASILY DEBUNKED?
The biggest theory that many journalists have put forward is that in making claims like these, Fox News can draw attention away from the behavior or policy failures of politicians whose worldview the network would like its audience to adopt.
Luz Moreno-Lozano, a reporter for the Austin-American Statesman who recently covered the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, told Poynter that she works two additional freelance jobs in order to make ends meet, rebutted any suggestion that she – or other journalists – are members of the elite with the following response:
“I don’t do this job because I’m considered the elite, or because I’m looking for something that would make me more money. I do this job because I love it, and because I love the people that I get to talk to. And for me, the amount of money doesn’t matter.”
To that end, Gabrille Settles, a reporter covering misinformation for PolitiFact who penned the Poynter analysis, noted that “contrary to Ungar-Sargon’s claim, most of us would never consider ourselves as being rich.”
Sarah Kobos, former senior photo editor at Wirecutter, who created a public spreadsheet with her colleagues that allowed reporters to share salary information anonymously, found that reporters and editors nationwide were making salaries ranging from $28,000 to $100,000 or even more (but the number of high-end salaries were few and far between and paled in comparison to other salaries that were being reported).
“I created this spreadsheet after discussing pay with colleagues when we grew frustrated at the often touted ‘industry standard,’ because there’s no such thing,” Kobos said. “It’s just another fallacy used to convince people that they won’t get better (pay), or shouldn’t expect to get better. I wanted to create a point of reference for people to see what their peers are making, and what they should strive for or what they can strive for, and how they should push further.”
Kobos described journalists’ pay as “asinine,” noting that they often have to “work multiple jobs” because national media is predominantly located in large cities with cost of living too high for the salaries journalists are being paid.
