It was a real light bulb moment for me. I was attending the National Association of Black Journalists conference in New Orleans in 2019 having a great conversation with a young reporter. She told me she was the state government reporter for WICS in Springfield, Ill. That piqued my interest as that was the last on-air job I held, at that same station, before getting into management. I wonder what she makes, I thought to myself. So, what the heck, I asked. The answer: just under $30,000. That was the same salary I made in that role almost 20 years earlier. How could that be?
Last week I wrote about issues related to recruiting for local newsrooms and received an overwhelming response focused on primarily one component: compensation. Pay is a major challenge in our industry, and there are no easy options to fix that. When it comes to expenses in local news, easy went away about five years ago. Many stations in our industry have cut away the last remnants of gristle and are now deep into the flesh. The best intentions of fixing the pay problem often fall victim to grim budget realities.
I have a lot of experience in this area as I have always been a vocal advocate for compensation increases for journalists. I’m also a realist. Consider this fact: Most television stations have profit margins that are significantly lower than they were 10 years ago. Yes, retransmission revenue has helped cover some of the declines in ad revenue, but network compensation eats most of that, and, in a growing number of cases, all or more.
Digital and streaming revenue also have helped, but not nearly enough. Broadcasters lack the advertising advantage we enjoy on our legacy platform of limited inventory, which drives pricing, especially during crunch times like political cycles. There is a limitless amount of digital and streaming inventory, which drives pricing lower. No matter how you look at the economic trends, they are tough and likely to worsen going forward.
How quickly is the only real debate. This makes fixing pay extraordinarily tough right now, but something has to happen, not just for recruiting, but for retaining our top performers.
Most of the comments I read reflect an inaccurate understanding of the state of our business. Many people point to outlandish executive salaries at some companies or dividend payments to shareholders. Here’s what I see. Many companies have scaled up to remain competitive. That scale has created a growing number of broadcasters that struggle to support the number of stations they now own. If you own 50, 75 or 100 TV stations, even something as basic as a 3% annual merit increase adds up to $10 million or more. It becomes an easy victim during grueling budget negotiations. This has driven down the annual raise for most station employees to the point it doesn’t keep pace with inflation. The same problem impacts capital allocations for local stations, but that’s for another time.
The struggle for a growing number of stations to remain profitable is real and growing, especially for lower performing stations in smaller markets (the same issue that has forced many small-town newspapers out of business.). The issue, again like newspapers, is almost certain to become more widespread, and soon. The number of local stations struggling to break even is certainly at an all-time high. That causes a sequence of events to take place that everyone inside the newsroom feels in one way or another. Every time a position opens, the question is asked whether the position needs to be filled. If it does, can the salary be lowered? The compromise is often “let’s hold it open and see if economic conditions improve.” They almost never do, and the position goes away.
I need to make clear: These are awful decisions that nobody enjoys making, despite the fact many people think corporate leaders do this without thinking twice. Nonetheless, it’s created the predicament of smaller newsroom staffs with compensation levels that are often too low to attract or retain top talent.
To all of those who commented so adamantly that money alone is the answer to improving the recruitment and retention rates at local stations, the evidence I’ve seen suggests that alone is not the case. I saw this theory tested in my time with Scripps. What if we allocated significantly more money toward reporting and other roles in hopes of attracting more experienced candidates? This felt like a no-brainer. A couple of company executives and I successfully lobbied the CEO for an investment of millions of dollars to increase compensation for several newsroom positions at every station in the group.
This was significant money. For example, reporters in small markets are being paid at levels normally paid in middle or even some large markets. Bigger markets generally have new, higher minimum salaries, often the highest in the market. Money was also shifted to hire many more reporters. The aspiration was clear: We wanted more and better reporting.
To my surprise, it was still a struggle to attract applicants, especially candidates with experience. The other theory at play here is that higher salaries will help with retention rates. Time will tell on that, though I think it will help keep some people. This remains the most significant test that I am aware of on the compensation theory inside local news.
While compensation alone isn’t the solution, local stations can’t succeed in a world where they lose out on reporter or photojournalist candidates to job offers from Home Depot or Wendy’s. In many underpaid newsrooms, compensation is going to have to increase. Where does the money come from? I continue to see only two options: using technology to reduce overall headcount to spread more money across fewer positions or to reduce the number of high-paying salaries in the building to increase money spent farther down the food chain. In other words, hit the top salaries aggressively to raise up the middle and bottom.
That’s easy to say, hard to do. There aren’t as many big salaries as there used to be in most local operations either. The number of highly compensated talent or department heads could be places to start.
Station leaders need to deal with another reality: Particularly during tough times, some employees are worthy of investment and others are not. It’s like professional sports. It’s hard to have a starting lineup full of all-stars.
A realistic approach is to have a mix of proven professionals who deliver results worthy of financial reward, while relying on the farm system to fill out the roster with less experienced promising talent. The anchors and reporters who deliver quality work and a strong work ethic need to be rewarded, while the others will turn organically.
While newsrooms can’t afford to make widespread compensation changes, starting with those who deliver the goods is an obvious to start. When budgets call for 2.5% across the board, many stations leaders go the easy route and apply that systematically. I hypothesize that as money tightens, giving high performers 5% or 6%, while giving low performers nothing, is a fairer system. These aren’t fun conversations to have, but at least your most valuable players are feeling some love at a time when hugs are hard to come by.
Sean McLaughlin is vice president of news for Graham Media Group’s local media hubs.
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