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By Cynthia Joyce Making big bucks from the small screen (10/29/97) Newsroom salaries
Is Anna Wintour really worth a milion bucks?
Hollywoodland
Giuliani's Times
The grapes of tourism
BROWSE THE
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workers of the web, delight FOR "WORD PEOPLE," THE NEW MEDIA BOOM MEANS A RARE CHANCE TO MAKE A REAL BUCK.
They're not talking about hotshot programmers buying million-dollar homes in Silicon Valley, either. No one raises an eyebrow these days when they hear the latest anecdote about a 24-year-old C++ coder who knows his way around an Oracle database choosing between $90,000 Chief Technical Officer executive positions. Programming talent is priceless, now, more than ever. The same is true, on a lesser scale, for graphic design specialists (who, increasingly, are expected to wield some programming chops themselves). But the supply of competent design talent has also always been limited. Never mind the artists and the geeks -- it's the money being made by the so-called "word people," as one editor puts it, that has Web industry observers all hot and bothered. Editors and writers, project managers and producers -- at one large media company, English majors fresh out of college are walking into $35,000 to 40,000-a-year jobs, with benefits, while those with a few years of experience are landing producer or executive producer positions ranging from $40,000 to $65,000. How can this be? More importantly, how can it continue? "When I went into journalism, I remember seeing on a salary survey that 'journalist' was in the bottom quintile, perched between rabbi and social worker," says David Sims, editor of CMP's Net Insider. "I never expected to make more than $35,000 -- maybe into the low $40,000s as an editor after years of grumbling. "But the Web is the great vindicator for people like geeks and wordsmiths who, only a decade ago, were thought less important in this society than stockbrokers and bankers," says Sims. "Reporters with hardly any experience can make about the same in Web/tech reporting that their print counterparts only get after many years of drudgery -- in the 35K-45K range. Add some editorial and project management into that mix and you can get close to six figures in a very short time." Not to mention stock options. Actual salary figures for Web workers may even be artificially low, given the disproportionately high number of start-up companies that reward employees for their long hours with chunks of stock. Stock-option gambling doesn't always pay off -- Wired Ventures' failed public offering springs readily to mind -- but on the whole, the Web's work force is young and willing to wager. Welcome to the brave new media world. Sounds great, doesn't it? But there are plenty of warning signs that should give delighted Web publishing flunkies pause. First of all -- just what the heck is "new media?" Does it refer to any kind of publishing or entertainment venture that involves a computer? Or does it mean merely "interactive," as in a videogame or CD-ROM? Or is it, as one gathers from talking to people who tend to use the term, increasingly a synonym for "the Web"? Surely, anything that is on the Web is by definition "new media" -- and therein lies the key. Ultimately, new media, like the Web, implies the merger of software and news/entertainment content. The Web, like no other medium before it, permanently blurs the lines that once separated entities like the news business from, say, the spreadsheet software business. For "content providers," the new media merger has meant the happy collision of two very different business models. All of a sudden, editors and writers are being paid as if they were working in the software business. For once, content providers find the laws of supply and demand working for them: It's a sellers market. Breaking into print journalism has always meant competing with a horde of byline-wannabes who are willing to work for next to nothing, or, in many cases, nothing at all. On the Web, the situation is reversed. True, there may be a comparative shortage of top-notch, high paying positions with any reasonable measure of job security -- as one former executive from the San Francisco online publishing scene notes, "No online news service, or magazine, can compete with a union salary at the San Jose Mercury News." But at the all-important entry level, opportunity abounds. A comparison between the content and the coding sides of Web publishing is instructive. At the dawn of the World Wide Web, much was made of the fact that any halfway intelligent peon could learn enough HTML in an afternoon to start coding Web pages. When the Web exploded, their talents were in sudden, and lucrative, demand. But those happy days didn't last long. Indeed, even as long ago as 1995, interns at HotWired were paid a measly $10 an hour to write basic HTML code. HotWired's virtual sweatshop reputation aside, today, Web design rates range anywhere from rock bottom to sky-high -- $100 an hour for quality "dynamic" HTML content; $200-$300 for custom banner advertisement design. Compensation is ruthlessly connected to skill set, online and off. Supply and demand operate normally -- whether one is coding for the Web or for Microsoft. The current flush situation for neophyte editors and reporters, however, is leading some to question whether today's state of affairs makes economic sense. "For writers and project managers especially," says one producer pulling down $50,000 a year working for a major media company's online publishing adjunct, "the skills required are very much analogous to print media -- but in print media, writers and project managers would be paid half as much as they do in new media." "Not that I don't like making money. But we can't afford to pay people what we pay them -- salaries are inflated, and they're fucking with the bottom lines of most content companies. Why are layoffs starting? Because our costs are too damn high ... Until we begin to show returns that shame our print counterparts, I don't see how we can justify paying the salaries we do. It just makes companies pull the plug faster." Of course right now, the plug keeps getting pulled, but the bathtub never drains. In the current go-go climate, layoffs happen, but they don't hurt. The venture capitalists are undismayed -- the number of people and machines connected to the Net surges every day. Sooner or later, someone has to make money, right? Conventional wisdom says that the best way to get promoted is to get fired first. As new media headhunter Cheryl Eisen notes, "It's actually seen as a good thing to have been in a failed startup -- you know what mistakes not to make again." Her observation appears to be as true for content providers as it is for programmers or CEOs. Can the new media shell game last forever? Or will investors finally pay attention to the weirdness that they wreak? One production manager at HotWired laughed grimly at the question. "Eventually, some bean counter is going to add it all up," said the
manager. "And then we'll all have to go back to work at Starbucks."
Do "new media" workers make too much money? Too little? Come to the Media Salaries discussion in Table Talk's new Money area and post your thoughts.
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