By Stacey Warde
As a young journalist starting out, I’d been warned: “There’s no money in it.”
I shrugged.
What’s that to me? I’m not trying to corner any market. I’m a journalist, a truth seeker. Ever know anyone who made money ferreting out truth, bringing the light of day into the shadowy world of politics? This was in the early 1980s, not long after I’d graduated from the School of Communications at Cal State Fullerton.
I was an idealist, smitten with the idea of the power of the pen. Who needs money when you have a sword at your fingertips? What’s the old saying? “He may have all the gold, but I’ve got all the lead,” meaning gold won’t be of much use against someone better equipped with the right weapons.
And that’s what I did with my training and experience, putting money-grubbing, corrupt lawyers and politicians on notice that the power of the press was a force to be reckoned with. They may have had all the gold, but I had all the lead.
Indeed, the power of the pen was a force to be reckoned with. I saw more than one supposed community stalwart, the presumed “movers and shakers,” exemplars of local virtue, even one of our biggest advertisers, go down in flames for lying and stealing other people’s money in spite of the appearance they gave of being good citizens. We nailed their misleading, false claims to wealth and virtue with basic journalistic instincts, fundamental digging, verification, truth, accuracy, and the power of the pen.
However, I also began to notice later in my career the inequities present in the business of journalism itself.
As managing editor, I observed one morning coming into work that the finest cars in the newspaper parking lot belonged to the advertising staff; the junkiest heaps, including mine, belonged to the editorial staff. Why?
All the perks and financial rewards, mostly given in sales commissions, went to those who sold the most ads. Meanwhile, my staff, which worked just as hard to create content that attracted readers and advertisers in the first place, took the leftover crumbs.
I argued for more equitable standards with the publisher, who agreed with me that there wouldn’t be much for the ad reps to sell without compelling content created by the editorial staff. “It’s all about the readership,” he’d say, nodding and affirming my concerns.
Meanwhile, he suggested, I could draw from the pool of money given in trade by some of the paper’s advertisers, primarily restaurants and those in the food business, to reward my people for their hard work. So, presumably, I could cut a check for dinner for two on occasion as a way to inspire and motivate my hardworking reporters. We still drove the junkiest cars in the lot. Virtually nothing changed with respect to the balance of power that comes with a healthy paycheck.
Soon after my conversation with the publisher, I checked the pool and discovered at least $3,000 in restaurant trade available to draw from; satisfied, I went back upstairs to my office and planned to reward several of my staff with a night out on the town. Several days later I went to cut a check for some of my people and discovered the account had been drained, leaving a zero balance, taken up by the ad staff who had apparently treated themselves to endless free lunches on the company dime.
So, not only were they earning more in commissions for their efforts but had long been in the habit of treating themselves to free lunches from the company coffers. How convenient.
This, however, is the way it has always been in my experience; this is why labor in several industries is on strike, protesting the unfairness of management and corporate executives living off the backs of those who do the heaviest lifting, executives who, without much remorse and plenty of self-righteous justification, take in the lion’s share of profit, earning millions while labor gets what little is left over.
Ford Motor Co. CEO, Jim Farley, for example, earned close to $21 million last year, which is roughly $54,000 a day, or about $12,000 a day less than what the average auto worker earns in one year.
The advice offered early in my career proved to be correct, there wasn’t much money in journalism, unless you were an owner or principal in the business. The big dollars were reserved for others, mostly salespeople and executives whose business acumen apparently was more deserving than the hard-working reporters pounding the streets to get the best, most relevant, and latest news affecting the entire community.
This notion, that wealth can be obtained by any means necessary, but mostly by limiting the income of labor, enabling executives to enrich themselves off of the backs of others, — those lesser individuals who were not smart or lucky enough to attend the best schools and land the best jobs — permeates our culture and is one reason why we see more of our brothers and sisters marching the streets and demanding fair wages.
Stacey Warde edited and published The Rogue Voice, a literary print magazine with an edge, from 2004–2008. Previously, he was managing editor of New Times, San Luis Obispo. He also has been a member of the Teamsters Union and the National Writers Union.
