You're right Mike, I mispoke. But still, Cowles is a decent-sized TV owner who should know better.
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MMJ Reporters in E. WA Making Less Than Working Fast Food
- Thread starter Kelly A
- Start date
KNDO is not owned by Sinclair.
It's a small company. That's my point. You want to work in small market TV for a small owner, you're not going to make $60K a year. Everybody has to start somewhere. I read all these comments wanting to break up iHeart or big radio companies and go back to local owners. This is what you get with small local owners. They do the bare minimum allowed by law. You want to work in fast food? Go ahead. I never had to do that. But I left my home town because the radio station was owned by a small local owner who paid minimum wage. That's a choice every person makes.
Then expect equally poor results.
The problem is, that adjusted for inflation, in a market with fewer people, I started at $53k forty-three years ago.
That wasn't unusual at the time for that size market and the simple act of moving from Reno to Las Vegas (then market 94) three years later resulted in a bump to $62,800 (adjusted).
What did they get for their money? Young people who didn't have to worry about paying for food to stay healthy, clothes and hair to present a professional on-air appearance, and whether they could make that month's car payment, rent and power bill---which allowed us to show up for work with our minds on the story we were going to cover that day, how best to tell it and how to improve our work.
If a person has no pride in what they do, they'll do a bad job regardless of the salary. If they take the starting salary, but demonstrate knowledge and talent, you give them a raise. That's how things work outside of the union system. You take a union job, and you get raises based on seniority regardless of the quality of your work. That's why I left the union. I made more in management.
Rochester NY was about the same size market in 1998 as it is now - somewhere around #78, so a little bigger than Yakima or Tri-Cities - but my first TV reporting gig back then was paying me around $40k a year, which would be about $75k today and was enough to get me a mortgage for a house the next year.
Needless to say, MMJs here now aren't even making $40k in 2024 dollars, and there are probably only a handful of very veteran reporters getting $75k a year here if they don't get forced out in staffing cuts or non-renewals.
It's not a business I would want to get into in today's conditions, and I couldn't advise any young journalist in good conscience to think they'd have a viable career in local TV news anymore.
Needless to say, MMJs here now aren't even making $40k in 2024 dollars, and there are probably only a handful of very veteran reporters getting $75k a year here if they don't get forced out in staffing cuts or non-renewals.
It's not a business I would want to get into in today's conditions, and I couldn't advise any young journalist in good conscience to think they'd have a viable career in local TV news anymore.
Ask anyone actually working in a non-union local TV job in 2024 if it actually works the way you're imagining.
You'll get a hell of an earful.
There are no raises. There are two-year contracts that are rarely renewed, and that come with noncompetes that force the MMJ to move somewhere else at the end of the two years.
What's that, you say? Those are ILLEGAL in a lot of states? Well, sure... but that takes a lawyer and if you've been making $15 an hour (and maybe a little more doing delivery driving after work to make ends meet), how are you going to pay a lawyer?
So you move out of the apartment you've been sharing with two roommates, pack up your 2004 Corolla and head off to some other sub-100 market for another two years of learning your way around.
Lather, rinse, repeat. It's brutal.
It worked for me. Plus I got ownership in the company and used that ownership to start my own company. You don't take a starting job for the money. You take it for experience and health benefits.
Anyone who compares TV news with fast food strictly because of the salary should stay out of TV news and flip burgers. Check back with me in 20 years.
As I say whenever I hear anything is "(Whatever) of the Year"----
What year? Could you replicate that experience today?
Yeah. It worked for me too. Because it was a different century when things worked differently.
You really don't see that things have changed pretty dramatically around us? That the system has changed and the privileges we enjoyed simply do not exist in today's very different world? C'mon.
And I almost forgot the best part: that entry-level MMJ job probably won't be yours if you don't have a degree and a reel from J-school.
You know what was affordable in the 20th century and has skyrocketed in price far out proportion with overall inflation in the last couple of decades? That degree and the debt that comes with it.
You really don't see that things have changed pretty dramatically around us? That the system has changed and the privileges we enjoyed simply do not exist in today's very different world? C'mon.
And I almost forgot the best part: that entry-level MMJ job probably won't be yours if you don't have a degree and a reel from J-school.
You know what was affordable in the 20th century and has skyrocketed in price far out proportion with overall inflation in the last couple of decades? That degree and the debt that comes with it.
I see it every day. News people working for the big TV companies are competing against website owners with their own camera covering stories and posting clickbait. People running their own internet radio stations saying they have 200K listeners and using that to justify getting access to big interviews. Yes things have changed. As I said, people have to decide what they want to do with their lives. There are lots of ways to do it.
And as long as y'all won't just GET OFF MY LAWN, a few more shouts at the clouds:
The job I did a generation ago for $75k in today's dollars? It was a lot easier than what today's generation of MMJs has to do. I was purely a reporter. I had an experienced photog working alongside me and helping to construct our stories, which were usually just one package and maybe a couple of quick VOSOTS a day. Either my photog or a staff editor did the editing. I never had to touch a camera or editing bay (though I hauled a lot of heavy tripods and lights.)
Write up a digital story for a website? Not until my final years there. Social media? What's that? It won't be invented for a while.
Now we're asking these kids to do all of that work all by themselves, all the time.
If they're that passionate that they can't NOT do it, ok. But it's still myopic at best to imagine that they still have the kind of opportunities that BigA seems to imagine still exist. That's been winnowed out of the employment system entirely.
The job I did a generation ago for $75k in today's dollars? It was a lot easier than what today's generation of MMJs has to do. I was purely a reporter. I had an experienced photog working alongside me and helping to construct our stories, which were usually just one package and maybe a couple of quick VOSOTS a day. Either my photog or a staff editor did the editing. I never had to touch a camera or editing bay (though I hauled a lot of heavy tripods and lights.)
Write up a digital story for a website? Not until my final years there. Social media? What's that? It won't be invented for a while.
Now we're asking these kids to do all of that work all by themselves, all the time.
If they're that passionate that they can't NOT do it, ok. But it's still myopic at best to imagine that they still have the kind of opportunities that BigA seems to imagine still exist. That's been winnowed out of the employment system entirely.
In theory, that's correct, but this isn't the same time as you or I came up through the business. Now in small market TV, the only way you advance is to move to another market. The difference is; that now you can't afford an apartment, so you live in your car.
Stations aren't taking the time, money, or effort to help new talent grow even if it benefits their station in the long haul. Good enough is good enough. Is the newscast on the air? Good enough. Did the anchor or reporters say something that will get us sued? No? Good enough.
This goes back to a discussion and lack of agreement you and I had about reporter cuts at a Seattle news radio station. Is running audio from a local TV station on the radio good enough? Cool. Is having the building engineer or an intern create online content for the app a good idea? Sure, if it saves money. It seems like you don't care about the degradation of quality or reputation, which is surprising to me.
And yes, this coming from a guy who's worked at the corporate level plus ownership and is cognizant of saving money in a tough economic climate. But at some point, I recognize there's a line of cost savings that ruins the product quality and reputation. It boils down to not doing it at all, rather than becoming a joke to your viewers and peers in the industry.
But you had to be qualified to manage people or processes. You do that by having mentors, and coaches, and growing in the roles while being able to maintain at least a basic lifestyle so you can concentrate on your craft. The best managers come from people who do/did well at the jobs they are eventually chosen to manage.
Cold Coffee
Banned
Most TV stations want a young and pretty face. I guess us old pharts are out of the game.
And you're right, they need to at least try and appeal to a younger audience advertisers want to reach. Advertisers wanting to reach old pharts are buying national time on diginets like MeTV.
That's how it was for me. I have lived in many places. This job is not like factory work where you stay at the same place your whole life. If you take the minimum wage job, you start building a demo reel. Set up a web site with your demo, do the LinkedIn thing to make contacts and connections. Maybe stay at the starting job for one year to set up your next job. Rinse & repeat until you get where you want to be. This is a business for self-starters who know where they want to go. There are easier ways to make more money.
Cold Coffee
Banned
Easier ways to make more money. The stock market has been very good. And those still in broadcasting are there today because they love broadcasting.
The ad says "bilingual", but never actually specifies what those two languages need to be. Does my fluent Klingon count?
qeylIS daghoS 'ej tlhejwI'wI' DarurchoHmoH.
Traditionally TV works differently than radio. Research shows viewers prefer known faces and quality, especially in small to mid-markets. Just look at your favorite network newscasts. Some street reporters have been reporting the same beat for ten to twenty years. That's because they test well and are part of the newscast brand.
In smaller to mid-markets, research shows that reporters who move into anchor roles stay in the community longer. That said; will Cowles benefit from a speedy revolving door of reporters who are forced to live in their car until finding something better? In the short term, the answer is probably yes solely based on cost savings alone over hiring qualified MMJ's. But by penny-pinching, they're forcing young talent to move onto a market where they don't need to live in their car and will either wash out of the business or land somewhere that's willing to coach them to ultimately benefit their newscast brand.
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