Howard Kurtz did no better. Sawyer’s appointment, he wrote in The Washington Post, “leaves a sizable void at ‘Good Morning America,’ where Sawyer’s star power will be hard to replace,” blah blah. “Although nightly news ratings have been declining for two decades and the morning shows are more profitable,” Kurtz went on, “network anchors still command considerable prestige and lead the coverage of disasters, political conventions and other breaking-news events,” blah blah.
Not once did Kurtz break from such entertainment-speak to consider how shallow the network news has become, and why. The networks are in a death spiral, yet they keep airing the same tired product. Could they do things differently? Has the anchor system perpetuated the problem? What changes might succeed in luring new viewers? Pondering such questions would surely be of more use to Post readers than Kurtz’s Variety-like musings.
Interestingly, in July, after the death of Walter Cronkite, Kurtz, in one of his regular online Q & A sessions with readers, fielded the following: “Cronkite did not start out as a celebrity, he became one and was likely the last anchor to do so after the Barbara Walters/Dan Rather era started. Do the high salaries of top TV anchors damage the connection with the public that Cronkite seemed to have?”
Kurtz: “I don’t fully know. Katie Couric may make $15 million a year, but she grew up in a middle-class family in Arlington. Brian Williams was once a volunteer fireman. Dan Rather graduated from Sam Houston State College. And it’s not just the anchors—the opinion guys, O’Reilly, Rush, Olbermann, Matthews and the like, make millions each year. Does that mean their values change, that they’re automatically out of touch? In some cases, perhaps, but I don’t think that’s universally true.”
Kurtz could muster no outrage over the salaries these anchors are pulling down, nor even wonder aloud about the state of the rusty shows these journalists are presiding over. At a time when the obscene executive pay levels at places like Goldman Sachs and AIG are stoking anger, shouldn’t the same be true for ABC, CBS, and NBC?
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I've long held that the anchors are grossly over-paid. Their level of pay implies that they are uniquely qualified, which they are not. The problem is created by the networks' own promotion of the anchors. If they rotated more newspeople in the anchor chair, they'd eliminate the star obsession and probably build a reputation as a serious news organization. Spend the money on shoe leather.
#1 Posted by Larz Neilson, CJR on Wed 23 Sep 2009 at 03:03 PM
It's worth mentioning that the audiences for NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered are far larger than the CBS Evening News. Both shows have roughly 14 million listeners, whereas Katie Couric's newscast has about 6 million.
#2 Posted by Dan, CJR on Wed 23 Sep 2009 at 05:32 PM
This is a good piece, and God knows I wish 9/10 of Katie Couric's pay could be diverted to news coverage. But I wish Michael Massing would take a stab at the obvious question: why do the networks pay anchors such seemingly ridiculous sums of money? Are executives at these organizations demented? Or might it be that they are spending their shareholders' money in the way they consider most likely to bring the profits that come with a larger audience?
It would be interesting to know how much an additional point of audience share is worth to a network. It would also be interesting to know whether the quality of TV news correlates with audience share. Based on the general embrace of "if it bleeds, it leads," the answer is probably that it does not. So we get the media that we deserve, and the talking heads who feed it to us get millions.
I'd like to see a folo on how we might change all this, and I mean that question seriously. Perhaps some maverick network executive will realize that there's no need to pay this much--but if so, is the money likely to be spent on news instead?
#3 Posted by Dan Akst, CJR on Wed 23 Sep 2009 at 06:14 PM
But so what? NPR, hard to believe, isn't the gold standard for news--it's just the gold standard for the West-sides of New York and Los Angeles.
NPR has no shareholders which want a profit. NPR has no advertisers who demand to see viewer numbers. NPR doesn't really have much accountability, either. You're comparing apples and grapes.
NPR's foreign bureau can be 1 person, a laptop, and decent quality audio recording device. TV news demands rather more people and equipment, all which have to be paid, upgraded, etc.
Massing might be very good at his milieu, but he's got no clue as to how TV news (or even radio news) gets made. Complaining about the salary of the anchor is absurd--Katie Couric's got the whole weight of CBS's budget riding on her performance. No one tunes in because of the great sound quality.
#4 Posted by Bart, CJR on Wed 23 Sep 2009 at 06:35 PM
Or looked at another way -- the budgets of two NPR programs are more than 20 times the annual salary of the President of the United States.
A nonsensical comparison? Yes...and so is comparing Couric's salary to the budgets of two radio programs.
#5 Posted by Ollie, CJR on Wed 23 Sep 2009 at 07:23 PM
Whether the comparison between Couric's salary and the NPR budgets is fair, it does suggest an interesting approach. Could a network that devoted funds to paying reporters and support staff pitch itself as the working person's news channel because it tried to create jobs?
Could that network gain viewship by focusing on jobs, economic issues, and workplace issues and the politics that affect them?
Some network should try this. There's plenty of laid-off talent, and those workers have seen the seamy side of employment. There are innumerable work-related stories out there, and they relate to many political and economic issues the country is facing.
#6 Posted by Barbara, CJR on Wed 23 Sep 2009 at 09:31 PM
Uh, is that not rather the point of the piece? TV news can't spend money on the mechanics of real news gathering when so much is going to celebrity anchors.
#7 Posted by Scott Hanley, CJR on Wed 23 Sep 2009 at 09:34 PM
Without privvy to CBS Corporation's profits-and-loss on the "CBS Evening News" with Couric, I don't think complaining about "the absurd financial structure of the network news," makes sense. Why would it be "absurd" to pay Couric $15 million is she produces $25 million in corporate profits? The article linked to by Shafer has stats on just how lucrative these shows continue to be.
If your problem is with our capitalist news system - and you would prefer a mandated non-profit, or state-controlled, system - than you should make that clear. Otherwise, complaining about the allocation of resources at two totally different entities, serving different purposes (and don't kid yourself that the non-profit NPR and the "CBS Evening News" share the same goals), without access to financial data concerning profitability makes no sense.
What if I turned it around and said: I think its clear NPR employees are underpaid. Did you know they are constructing new headquarters in DC? Know about the Joan Croc money? Do you know how much money they generate in subscription fees from member stations? Having known people who've worked on both the CBS Evening News and at NPR, I think its fair to say my NPR friends felt more exploited (in terms of receiving fair compensation for their labor).
#8 Posted by PorJ, CJR on Wed 23 Sep 2009 at 10:23 PM
I think folks would be shocked to learn that many of NPR's senior staff earn more than $300,000 a year, some significantly more. I have a hard time feeling bad for NPR and their exceedingly poor money management (including the Croc money). NPR's had to raise more and more and more money to feed to ever-increasing cost of people who might contribute only a handful of minutes a month to their airwaves. The lower level staff remains underpaid and the gap between senior and junior staff continues to grow each year.
#9 Posted by Joe, CJR on Wed 23 Sep 2009 at 10:32 PM
Katie who? Diane who?... can't remember the last time I sat down and watched the nightly news...
#10 Posted by dc, CJR on Thu 24 Sep 2009 at 12:54 AM
PorJ said: "Why would it be "absurd" to pay Couric $15 million is she produces $25 million in corporate profits?"
it is not absurd to pay her that much, but when you do so it is absurd to then call it journalism while expecting me to keep a straight face.
#11 Posted by mdh, CJR on Thu 24 Sep 2009 at 02:20 AM
suppose somebody like, uh, well, cbs comes to you and asks you to be their evening news anchor. and they offer to pay you $15 million a year. how many people would say, "naw, that's too much. it's only worth $1 million. pay me that"? would ANYBODY do that? i don't think so.
the networks pay whatever they pay. nobody MAKES them pay exorbitant salaries.
does a very high salary mean katie couric is NOT a journalist, as one reader suggests? if that's true then the whole lot of network anchors going back half a century -- cronkite, brokaw, chancellor, rather, brinkley et al -- are not producing real "journalism" because, at least in relative terms, they ALL made much more than their print brethren.
#12 Posted by JTFloore, CJR on Thu 24 Sep 2009 at 03:30 AM
If a prospective anchor were an idealist then their saying they'd do the job for just $1M if the other $14M is spent on a better newscast would hardly be crazy. Will never happen, but wouldn't be mad.
#13 Posted by Warren Terra, CJR on Thu 24 Sep 2009 at 04:30 AM
it is not absurd to pay her that much, but when you do so it is absurd to then call it journalism while expecting me to keep a straight face.
O.K.: so your definition of journalism is based upon how much the reporter earns for their labor? The less they earn, the better the quality of journalism? Its precisely this kind of thinking that allows NPR to get away with not paying their journalists what they should - in terms of audiences, member station growth, and donations, and, yes, revenue, NPR gets away with paying peanuts because its a "quality brand."
Journalists need to wake up and discover how their idealism makes them so exploitable - Massing isn't helping things here.
And I would argue that some of the best campaign journalism of 2008 was done by CBS News, and yes, Couric. It wasn't NPR that asked her - and allowed the audience to view her puzzled face - to name a single Supreme Court case she disagreed with. If NPR does such quality journalism, I'll ask this: when was the last time you heard about a villain on their airwaves? It was CBS News (along with the New Yorker) that exposed Abu Ghraib, right?
Uh, oops. That can't be quality journalism - the reporter earned too much.
#14 Posted by PorJ, CJR on Thu 24 Sep 2009 at 09:22 AM
The folks who are saying TV news requires so much more equipment haven't really been paying attention to tech changes. ABC set up a whole series of mini-bureaus with just one person, an HD camera and good software. Most of the stuff generated by these bureaus goes on the web site but with a little extra work it can go on the air. That network needs to promote those bureaus more so we can get more reporting that means something from around the world.
So maybe spend some more on the grunts in the field and less on the anchor. People will come to well reported news (hence the big draw of NPR) instead of light-weight fare. It would be nice if Diane Sawyer asked that a portion of what is bound to be a BIG salary bump be given to building the news team instead of her bank account. (And yes, I would repeat that suggestion to Brian and Katie.)
#15 Posted by Dan K, CJR on Thu 24 Sep 2009 at 09:28 AM
My ideal network news model would be reporter-driven. There would be someone competent to read lead-ins for outstanding packages in the field. That anchor would barely be noticed and the reporting would capture almost all of the attention. Unfortunately, that's not reality.
While it is sad to see bureaus close and reporting staffs shrink, news is a business. If Couric drives ratings and tens of millions into the profit column, in my view she earns her money even if I personally don't watch her or care much for her.
#16 Posted by Former Reporter, CJR on Thu 24 Sep 2009 at 09:35 AM
''It's worth mentioning that the audiences for NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered are far larger than the CBS Evening News. Both shows have roughly 14 million listeners, whereas Katie Couric's newscast has about 6 million.''
Those NPR ratings are listeners per week; i.e., how many people tune in at least once per week. Couric's numbers are the average number of viewers watching at any given time. Measured by the radio standards, Couric's ratings would be much higher.
#17 Posted by Tom, CJR on Thu 24 Sep 2009 at 10:21 AM
It's very clear from this piece that Michael Massing knows very little about the networks' three evening newscasts and probably never watches them either. Why do I say that? Because of this sentence of his: "The networks are in a death spiral, yet they keep airing the same tired product."
The only thing 'tired' here is this sentence. Television can and does do much more with far less resources thanks to technological advances. Also, any of the 20 million viewers who watch the evening newscasts each night see dynamic well-edited newscasts culled together from reporters and producers around the world. There is nothing 'tired' about these broadcasts.
One could easily make the argument that it is newspapers producing the 'tired' product. I'm not talking about the NY Times or Washington Post but they are virtually in a class by themselves. Most other newspapers are producing 'tired' wired stories about yesterday's news. The evening newscasts are producing fresh stories about that day's events. Big difference.....and hey, I used to be a print reporter but now work in television.
#18 Posted by paul, CJR on Thu 24 Sep 2009 at 11:14 AM
Joe's comment about some of NPR's senior staff earning more than $300,000 a year is shocking. If this is true, I am ashamed to have pledged any money whatsoever in recent drives given that I am a struggling college student. Can anyone verify this claim?
Also, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer could stand to be more humorous but overall is the model cable should imitate. In my opinion, the best TV news is composed primarily of direct video footage and in-depth coverage that represents all angles. Ideally, it would be moderated by a knowledgable host but reporters should not take precedence over the news they are covering. The fact that media celebrities are grossly overpaid is lamentable, but not surprising.
#19 Posted by Trevor LeCain, CJR on Thu 24 Sep 2009 at 11:31 AM
declarations about the death of network tv's dinnertime newscasts are obviously premature and may well be for a long time to come.
it is worth noting that it was not all that long ago that some anonymous genius at abc recommended that nightline be abolished because it supposedly had grown redundant and, thus, irrelevant. ah, but don't recent ratings show nightline the LEADER in its time slot, even BEATING the competing late-night talk shows?
#20 Posted by JTFloore, CJR on Thu 24 Sep 2009 at 11:58 AM
Joe's comment about some of NPR's senior staff earning more than $300,000 a year is shocking. If this is true, I am ashamed to have pledged any money whatsoever in recent drives given that I am a struggling college student. Can anyone verify this claim?
A blogger looked at NPR's 990 Forms:
Then-president of NPR Kevin Klose made $465,994 from the network and $151,375 from the NPR foundation for a total of $617,369.
Kenneth Stern, who served as CEO before leaving abruptly in March of this year, made $427,057.
The 2007 return showed 15 people at NPR with the title of vice president or senior vice president. Most made between about $190,000and $260,000. A page on NPR's Web site shows 14 current vice presidents.
NPR reported its five highest paid employees were:
1. Managing Editor Barbara Rehm, $383,139
2. All Things Considered host Robert Siegel, $350,288
3. Morning Edition host Renee Montagne, $332,160
4. Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep, $331,242
5. NPR afternoon programming director Richard L. Harris, $190,267.
The most eye-catching salary ever reported on an NPR tax form is probably the $505,132 paid to broadcaster Bob Edwards in FY2004, the year he was ousted as host of Morning Edition, quit, and went to XM Radio. He hosted his last NPR show in April, five months before the end of the fiscal year, so the half-million dollar salary (presumably including some kind of severance) seems to have been for just seven months work.
More HERE
http://joshgerstein.blogspot.com/2008/12/npr-salaries-raw-data.html
#21 Posted by PorJ, CJR on Thu 24 Sep 2009 at 12:41 PM
I have a different view of this because I run a small manufacturing company, with annual revenues of about 20% of Ms. Couric's annual salary. I don't see why either the network or NPR people are paid so much. Couric's fawning over Barack Obama and tripping up Sarah Palin did not impress. Her tenure finds her network at the bottom of the ratings. She and Sawyer are both attractive women, but so what? Intellectual integrity and a balanced viewpoint are more important to me. Give me real information and let me decide what to do with it. I don't want or need Katy to charm me or tell me what I should think. In this, the network news appears to be reaching for some level of "entertainment" value with a political spin that is undeniable.
I get my "entertainment" and information about the world elsewhere. This has to be, for the talking heads are not all that bright and the coverage is at the sound-bite level. If you want serious discussion, you have to find other sources. Whether Sawyer is a hottie or not, I couldn't care.
Estimating the value provided to society, I don't think reading "news" into a camera is worth $15M a year. Not even close.
I find it hilarious that many in the entertainment business find capitalism disgusting but live high because of it. Maybe they realize how very useless they really are.
#22 Posted by Harry Schell, CJR on Thu 24 Sep 2009 at 01:25 PM
[[If they rotated more newspeople in the anchor chair, they'd eliminate the star obsession and probably build a reputation as a serious news organization.]] -- Lars
That's actually almost exactly how CNN did it when it began. The first Gulf War was what really changed it -- and not for the better.
#23 Posted by Lex, CJR on Thu 24 Sep 2009 at 01:44 PM
Comparing the raw salaries from a commercial "news" operation to an NPR program's budget is rather ridiculous, given the amount of money airing commercials can bring in, vs pledge drives. So percentage-wise (e.g. salary as a percentage of revenue or operating budget) whose salary is more ridiculous: Robert Siegel or Katie Couric's?
Siegel/NPR All Things Considered (ATC): 7% (salary / ATC budget)
Couric/CBS Evening News: 10.7% (salary / ad revenue, est. $140M, assuming "CBS Evening News" maintains the same pace as the 1st half of this year: "The CBS Evening News pulled in $70.8 million in ad revenue for the first six months of the year (2009), according to data provided by TNS Media Intelligence." (From E&P))
Still not quite apples-to-apples, if we wanted that, we'd need numbers on how much money NPR brings in due to ATC or Evening News' operating budget. I only can rely on google. Presumably Mr. Massing could get these numbers and actually demonstrate his outrage in hard numbers. Or, he could follow the lead of far too many journalists and simply put some numbers together that just look outrageous, and hope no one calls him out on bad math.
#24 Posted by tm, CJR on Thu 24 Sep 2009 at 01:53 PM
It feels as though the more these surgically enhanced talking heads earn the less informative they are. Would that we could clone BBC's Catty Cay, ABC's Cynthia McFadden and CNN's Christiane Amanpour. The best I can say about network (amd most cable) news is that both have driven me back to reading periodicals!
#25 Posted by ellen sweets, CJR on Thu 24 Sep 2009 at 02:02 PM
"Both shows have roughly 14 million listeners, whereas Katie Couric's newscast has about 6 million. "
I wonder why.
#26 Posted by Brady Bonk, CJR on Thu 24 Sep 2009 at 02:18 PM
National Propaganda Radio's salaries are paid for by our taxes.
Couric's and SEE–BS from ad sales (though The One is considering a newspaper "bailout, which I am sure will be extended to electronic dying dinosaur media).
Is there NO ONE in CJR who notices that lower audience ratings coincide with leftist tilt?
(Or is it because CJR is part of the problem, simply a training ground for each new generation of Walter Durantys, instead of teaching students to emulate Gareth Jones?)
#27 Posted by jpeditor, CJR on Thu 24 Sep 2009 at 03:21 PM
. . . and Alex Rodriguez probably makes more than Couric and Sawyer combined. NPR's budgets are much bigger than other radio news networks who operate without government subsidies, too. So what's the point? Buy some stock in CBS and start griping about Couric's salary at some stockholder meetings. You can. By contrast, as a taxpayer, what's my input into NPR salaries?
#28 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Thu 24 Sep 2009 at 03:22 PM
Allow me to explain. Katie gets all that money because she's in show business.
TV journalism is always at least half show business. And the further up the ladder you go, the more in show business you are.
And nearly all complaints about TV journalism, including all the above, are in effect saying: They're acting like they're in show business!
To which the answer is: Yes, you're right. They are acting as if they were in show business. They are acting like that because they ARE in show business. Do you have another question?
#29 Posted by Robert Laurence, CJR on Thu 24 Sep 2009 at 03:26 PM
Robert Laurence has it right. Its all showbiz. The top guys are all running an entertainment company.
#30 Posted by KFox, CJR on Thu 24 Sep 2009 at 05:20 PM
I think the writer's comparison of Couric's salary to NPR's budget for two shows is completely valid. He's making the point that for this one person CBS could fund two huge, quality newsgathering endeavors! It's really not that hard to understand.
And puh-leeze. NPR is not really funded with our taxes – unless you think that 2% of its budget from government grants is really that significant. If you looked into it, you’d see government grants fund projects all over the political spectrum – some that you would support and some you wouldn’t. Verify your facts before making such outlandish claims! That's what's wrong with discourse in our country - people are so wildly misinformed it’s scary.
#31 Posted by JCH, CJR on Fri 25 Sep 2009 at 02:36 AM
I agree with earlier posts: I can't remember the last time I actually watched network news. When they come on, I'm still driving home (and listening to NPR). I don't watch news on TV until BBC America comes on at 10PM.
#32 Posted by JDF, CJR on Fri 25 Sep 2009 at 09:06 AM
Over the past year I cancelled my cable TV subscription and stopped watching the junk on CNN and other networks. Even with cable though, I rarely watched anything on NBC/ABC/CBS and particularly FOX. Seems like the dwindling audience that these networks share are mostly older folks that aren't very internet savvy. I trust the information provided by smaller news entities much more than I trust the selective/spoon fed news provided by the television networks. Maybe the question should really be whether TV network news has much viability in the first place... aren't they on a downward spiral in much the same way as newspapers? BTW, I have NOT missed television in the least!
#33 Posted by kc, CJR on Fri 25 Sep 2009 at 12:35 PM
Robert Laurence hits the nail on the head. TV news offers more entertainment value than news value. And the reason for that is that television is a bad medium for news.
The only thing TV does that radio and print can't do is transmit images. Most news stories don't involve any interesting images. So the value of television is wasted on news. Turn off the sound while you're watching the news and what do you see? Faces staring and talking. Stock video looped over and over again. Lots of space-filling graphics. The headline crawl across the bottom of the screen has an embarrassing tendency to upstage the anchor. TV news is an endless, hopeless struggle to find an interesting picture in an unphotogenic world.
What they really should do is dump the talking heads and fill the whole screen with scrolling headline tickers, occasionally cutting to a picture or video to keep things interesting.
#34 Posted by D. B., CJR on Fri 25 Sep 2009 at 01:34 PM
Katie Couric is paid a lot of money. Therefore her network must do a poor job of reporting the news.
A couple of lines of argument missing in this article? A gap in the logic? Wouldn't the number and qualifications of reporters in the various news agencies be a more meaningful comparison?
#35 Posted by ah, CJR on Sun 27 Sep 2009 at 01:14 AM
>I think folks would be shocked to learn that many of NPR's senior staff earn more than $300,000 a year, some significantly more. I have a hard time feeling bad for NPR and their exceedingly poor money management (including the Croc money)
Just like the networks, NPR has to contend with the tastes of its regular listeners. No doubt the ruckus which occurred when Bob Edwards departed left its mark on the memories of management. Listeners, especially those who have been loyal contributors and feel their money should talk, leave in a huff when their favorite voices disappear. $300K sounds like a king's ransom to me, but when compared to what TV networks might offer for NPR's hosts to jump ship, it's a pittance.
Meanwhile, listen to the job the a.m. and p.m. hosts are doing on the air -- they are not just reading the news but doing hard-hitting interviews. I''m happy NPR has the $ to keep them in their seats.
#36 Posted by Pat Bee, CJR on Sun 27 Sep 2009 at 10:45 AM
most network anchors get much to much money for what they do. The crews and news producers, cameraman, and the audio persons who put the news together never come close to getting that amount of pay. They should spread around the money and hire more people for a better news production.
#37 Posted by art benger, CJR on Wed 30 Sep 2009 at 08:17 AM
Brian Williams salary is eight million dollars a year Katie Courics salary is fifteen million dollars. She is in third place making the most money.
#38 Posted by John Lund, CJR on Wed 27 Oct 2010 at 08:42 PM
Katie @ $15M......Rush @ $38M and likely to exceed $50M soon......let's face it Kate's a lot better looking.........but does this matter since Rush's main schtick is on radio......
#39 Posted by Frank the Crank, CJR on Mon 21 Mar 2011 at 10:45 PM
Most news stories don't involve any interesting images. So the value of television is wasted on news.
#40 Posted by oakley, CJR on Wed 27 Apr 2011 at 10:40 PM
NPR reports news the same way all the news entertainment channels do: by giving surface-skimming news surrounded by pretty music and lots of commercials.
NPR was interviewing Noam Chomsky and told Noam what he could and couldn't say - WHY would anyone call that news?
I don't care what Katie makes or any other news person - they make money because it's entertainment. Period. E-N-T-E-R-T-A-I-N-M-E-N-T!
If you want real news, about real people, real problems, solid solution ideas, or what is really, truly happening to people all around the globe, visit Link TV or a similar 'News' station (www.linktv.org) and you'll stop arguing over mundane celebrity salaries.
#41 Posted by Susie Maxin, CJR on Tue 27 Dec 2011 at 09:27 PM