Jeffery Preston Bezos, owner of the Washington Post, and third richest man in the world, cannot be bothered to pay his journalists a fair wage.
This week, the Post journalists went on strike demanding among many things a higher minimum salary, for management to have the obligation to correct pay disparity, annual pay raises, and guaranteed mental health coverage.
Looking over the demands, it’s frustrating to see how little journalists earn and how much they’re expected to do with so little. For example, if you are routinely covering mass shootings and natural disasters, a little therapy might be nice. As a treat.
Journalism is one of those professions where people are expected to work overtime for poverty wages. Journalism is a profession where bosses will spout off about your work is necessary to the very foundations of Democracy, but god forbid you ask not to starve.
Most of the journalists I know literally could not afford to do the work they do if they didn’t have partners who were making a living wage. The ones I know who do make a living wage are the ones most opposed to unionizing, BUT THAT’S A PROBLEM FOR A DIFFERENT COLUMN. And yes, even your locally-owned papers have this problem.
Because the implicit corporate position is always, “Just be grateful you have a job. Don’t ask for more. Don’t criticize.”
Listen, journalism doesn’t die in darkness, it dies in the hands of greedy corporate overlords who claim they can’t pay their journalists what they’re worth. Democracy doesn’t die in darkness, it dies in the hands of a man whose business practices make robber barons blush.
This isn’t a silver spoon problem. It’s not like, “Oh no, journalists have to cut back on avocado toast.” In the past couple of years, I’ve seen friends who are journalists leave the profession and finally get the necessary surgeries they’ve been putting off because their journalism jobs didn’t offer them the healthcare coverage they needed. I’ve written about this before, but as a single mom of two kids in Iowa, I earned barely above poverty wages for my journalism job and had to supplement with freelancing projects, so I was working all the time, exhausted, and expected to take on additional tasks without compensation.
For more insight: Look at these horrific stats from the Iowa Journalism Survey.
Journalism bosses love it when you write hard-hitting reports about everything except about how they are so miserly they make Ebenezer Scrooge give some bombastic side-eye.
At this rate, let’s just call him Jeffenezer Scrooge.1
Jeff Bezos bought this newspaper in 2013 and has been taking an active role in its management. As a result, the paywalls have gotten more draconian and journalists still haven’t even seen pay increases that keep up with inflation.
As Kelsey McKinney tweeted in January of this year, “There is no ethical way to lay off your employees as a media CEO unless you yourself have cut your own fucking salary for a very long time. It's not about money. It's about control.”
At this point in American history, I think we just need to accept that anyone wealthy got there by fashioning the bodies of their workers into a corporate stepstool. I hope Bezos enjoys once again not listening to the three ghosts that exhaustedly visit him every Christmas. They repeatedly showed him pictures of a Tiny Eli Saslow struggling on crutches. But that stopped working once Saslow went to the Times. I hope those ghosts at least have good mental health coverage.
And now for something good:
In Pennslyvania, a new school board member was sworn in on a stack of banned books.
My publisher suing my state? We love to see it.
Even the New York Times is sick of Iowa’s shit.
You know what’s good? Abortion access funds. Abortion access funds are doing the work of making sure that people can get the reproductive care they need. This year, I joined the board of the Iowa Abortion Access Fund and even in the darkest days, it’s been good to know that we gave money to someone to help them find their freedom. And there have been weeks when because of your donations, we’ve been able to cover the costs of someone’s travel and someone’s medical care. Just seeing that money put to use and knowing that somewhere a person got the care they needed because of us? Well, it’s great. Please donate to the Iowa Abortion Access Fund or to your local abortion access fund.
What I am drinking:
For two days this week, my body decided I should run a low-grade fever and ache a lot. I think it was a sinus thing. Mostly, because I felt like I’d been kicked in the face. But who knows? I am not a doctor. I have absolutely no diagnostic training or practical skills whatsoever. If I survive the apocalypse, it will be a miracle.
I wasn’t sick enough to lay around all day. But I was also not healthy enough to not feel like dying. This is why the newsletter today is a little late. Democracy doesn’t die with a lack of newsletters. Democracy will probably die because it got throttled by the hands of a dingus. But in any case, no one cares what time this newsletter gets to the inbox. So last night, I went to bed.
To get better, I’ve been drinking a lot of citrus mint tea and moaning to my dogs. This is the worst time of year for illness. Everyone I know who has kids has had to rush to school to pick up a child who has run a fever or was woken up in the middle of the night to the sound of vomiting.
My comfort drink for illness is always tea with a little bit of hot honey or warm broth with a little hot sauce. That’s right, hot honey and hot sauce. Because, even though I live in Iowa, I am still a Texas girl at heart.
Even when you are sick you must season your food!
Tell me your comfort drinks below. Also, have a wonderful weekend. Stay healthy!
Listen, I’ve been sick this week. Leave me alone. It’s a great joke.
In the 90s, I worked for the biggest business news publisher in the world, our profit ratio was over 30%. The biz model was simple, hire 24 year old journalists who had been trained by a couple of years at a local paper. Turn them into industry’experts’ with six months intensive focus on a business niche, pay them low wages, tell them they are lucky to have a job you can use an English degree in. Watch them leave at age ~30 for jobs they don’t like in corporate communications for the niche industry they had reported on, but now that they have babies and mortgages so they need the money. Rinse, lather, repeat. Later I started my own niche biz news company, but changed the model by paying more as reporters grew in experience. Our profit ratios were equally strong and it was easier to compete because turns out readers and advertisers preferred great, trusted content created by experienced journalists. When we finally sold the company, the new owners promised they loved our model. Two years later they gutted journalist roles and salaries. Because the false idea that journalists don’t bring value is too ingrained I guess?
Jeff Bezos you do not need another rocket but your employees do need some therapy.
Solidarity ✊