Now THAT's a sweet gig

Simon's vs. Khazei's Big Bucks (6.00 / 2)

I agree but found Khazei's City Year salary of $315K more eyebrow-raising because it was the org that Khazei co-founded / co-exec'd paying him. An appearance of too much insider influence there. In contrast, Simon somehow negotiated this with NPR and it's at least as much NPR's bad as Simon's.  

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by: hubspoke @ Wed Dec 23, 2009 at 11:51:14 AM CST

Sure - like I said in the post, (0.00 / 0)

kudos to Simon for his apparently awesome negotiating skills.

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by: David @ Wed Dec 23, 2009 at 12:08:47 PM CST

[ Parent ]

The class of stakeholders doesn't work for less than this - (6.00 / 1)

What is disturbing is that these funds come from doners or taxpayers who do not know the kind of money the elite pays itself - and continues to pay itself even while slashing programs...and takes as its "due".

I don't think great negotiating skills were needed, David.  Once people like Simon or Khazei are admitted to the "insiders club" they all take care of one another.  

This behavior looks very tribal to me, at least.

Deborah Sirotkin Butler
AmberPaw dot @aol.com

"Failure to plan is planning to fail."
Proverb

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by: AmberPaw @ Wed Dec 23, 2009 at 22:16:57 PM CST

[ Parent ]

disagree (5.00 / 2)

Honestly, Khazei's salary was in line with other non profits that size. He did a lot of work when he was making that money, and could have made much more money (probably doing less work) outside of City Year if he wanted. If we want talented people in non profits and government, we have to be willing to pay good wages. I actually think this is a major aspect going on inside government and non profits today, especially non profits that are political in nature.  

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My thoughts are mine and mine alone. They should not be considered representative of any other organization, group or person - save me.

~Ryan.

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by: Ryepower12 @ Wed Dec 23, 2009 at 15:44:43 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Scott Simon (6.00 / 3)

Emphasis mine. His NPR bio:

Simon joined NPR in 1977 as chief of its Chicago bureau. Since then, he has reported from all 50 states, covered presidential campaigns and eight wars, and reported from Central America, Africa, India, the Middle East, and the Caribbean. In 2002, Simon took leave of his usual post at Weekend Edition Saturday to cover the war in Afghanistan for NPR. He has also reported from Central America on the continuing wars in that region; from Cuba on the nation's resistance to change; from Ethiopia on the country's famine and prolonged civil war; from the Middle East during the Gulf War; and from the siege of Sarajevo and the destruction of Kosovo.

Simon has received numerous honors for his reporting. His work was part of the Overseas Press Club and Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards NPR earned for coverage of Sept. 11 and its aftermath. He was part of the NPR news teams that won prestigious Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards for covering the war in Kosovo as well as the Gulf War. In 1989, he won a George Foster Peabody Award for his weekly radio essays. The award commended him for his sensitivity and literary style in coverage of events including the murder of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador and the San Francisco earthquake. Simon also accepted the Presidential End Hunger Award for his series of reports on the 1987-1988 Ethiopian civil war and drought. He received a 1986 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for his coverage of racism in a South Philadelphia neighborhood, and a 1986 Silver Cindy for a report on conditions at the Immigration and Naturalization Service's detention center in Harlingen, Texas.

Thirty-two years in the business, the premier news radio network in the country. What should he make?

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by: JimC @ Wed Dec 23, 2009 at 11:51:36 AM CST

For a once-a-week show? (0.00 / 0)

You tell me.  Going from the stuff you highlighted to what he's doing now sounds like partial retirement to me; I'd think salary should be commensurate.

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by: David @ Wed Dec 23, 2009 at 12:07:50 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Well, I assume (6.00 / 1)

It's still a full-time gig. He doesn't walk in Saturday morning and walk out before lunch.

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by: JimC @ Wed Dec 23, 2009 at 12:12:54 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Hmm. (6.00 / 1)

There are people who put together essentially the same show five days a week.  So, surely, the once-a-week thing cuts down the workload somewhat.

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by: David @ Wed Dec 23, 2009 at 12:17:39 PM CST

[ Parent ]

That's true (0.00 / 0)

I'm assuming that the staffs are smaller, and the host's role larger, but I don't know.

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by: JimC @ Wed Dec 23, 2009 at 12:41:38 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I hope (6.00 / 2)

Tom Ashbrook makes like $2M.  

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by: DoubleMan @ Wed Dec 23, 2009 at 13:30:30 PM CST

[ Parent ]

$500K for Jack Beatty (0.00 / 0)

In my world ...

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by: JimC @ Wed Dec 23, 2009 at 14:13:39 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Watch what you wish for (0.00 / 0)

Christopher Lydon, Ashbrook's predecessor made $230K and got canned for it.  

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by: dhammer @ Wed Dec 23, 2009 at 15:13:17 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Christopher Lydon (6.00 / 1)

wasn't half the intellect or the talent of Tom Ashbrook, imho.  

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by: lightiris @ Wed Dec 23, 2009 at 16:34:21 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I would like to think he should make whatever the market will bear. (0.00 / 0)

So good for him since he negotiated such a great deal.

What I would have a problem with is giving an money at to NPR since they did such a "poor" job negotiated with Scott Simon. This is a classic "gotcha" for non-profits who tell their sob stories for needing "your" money while they burn it on things "you" may not support.

Summary... great for Scott, bad for NPR.

Baker/Tisei in 2010... Charlie Baker on why people "have been" leaving MA, "It's not the weather here, it's the climate"

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by: JohnD @ Wed Dec 23, 2009 at 14:38:28 PM CST

Uh, David? (6.00 / 2)

NPR's next fundraising drive will be its first.

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by: dkennedy @ Wed Dec 23, 2009 at 16:13:47 PM CST

Yeah, yeah, (0.00 / 0)

I know, local stations fundraise, not the network.  Blah blah blah.

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by: David @ Wed Dec 23, 2009 at 16:33:49 PM CST

[ Parent ]

It's another link in an already tenuous chain (0.00 / 0)

local networks pay for the NPR programming.  By paying Simon $300k a year, NPR has to charge each of the stations a bit more, and so they need to fund raise a bit more to cover.

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by: stomv @ Thu Dec 24, 2009 at 06:46:52 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Although I am fully cognizant (0.00 / 0)

of NPR's shortcomings these days, I still believe it is the best outlet available.  That said, however, I, too, find Simon a bit cloying--a bit like too much White Shoulders on an octagenarian--but I do find "Weekend Edition" to be valuable overall.

My personal favorite these days, if one can call him that, is Steve Inskeep.  I admire his edge at 5:30 in the morning--I don't want the radio equivalent of David Allen Boucher even though I may not be fully awake.   Inskeep has prompted me to write more times to NPR than any other reporter/personality, especially since I know NPR  gets tremendous numbers of complaints about him.  Heh. (Gotta stick up for the flinty personalities that mirror my own.)

The other individual, however, I have written NPR's Ombudsman extensively about is the atrocious Barbara Bradley Hagerty.   The fact that she is on the payroll is a travesty.  She belongs on Fox of some Christian broadcasting station.   I know quite a few people who refused to give to their affiliate during the Bush years because of her.  

Other top-notch reporters are Wade Goodwyn, Peter Overby, Jason Beaubien (who did excellent work for WBUR), Joe Palca, and the inimitable Ofeibea Quist-Arcton in Dakarrrrrrrrrr.  

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by: lightiris @ Wed Dec 23, 2009 at 16:54:27 PM CST

Must Defend My Friend Chris Lydon Against Lightris's Take Down (4.00 / 1)

I was with Lightiris all the way through his cogent analysis of NPR programming and correspondents until he whacked my friend, Chris Lydon.

Chris has been a first-rate journalist throughout his storied career dating back to his stint as the Boston correspondent for the New York Times. Throughout the 1980s and early-mid 1990s, Chris was the editor and co-presenter of "The Ten O'clock News," on WGBH-TV, the only thoughtful, locally-produced nightly television news program for many years in Boston. The news program produced unparalleled coverage and analysis of local and state affairs, and won many local and national awards for news excellence. Jim Braude and Barbara Anderson have never agreed on any issue pertaining to Massachusetts affairs, with the exception of joining with numerous other local citizens to bemoan the loss of the "The Ten O'clock News" from our local broadcast airwaves.

Personally, I was agnostic about Chris's work on "The Connection" because I believe the program didn't highlight his journalistic strengths. And while I do agree that Tom Ashbrook does a very credible job as host of "On Point," it is unfair and unworthy to denigrate Chris's body of work as a journalist, including as host of "The Connection," in order to laud Tom Ashbrook's notable achievements.

Finally, I would almost prefer a third-hour of Garrison Keillor and "Prairie Home Companion" than to hear another Saturday morning of Scott Simon waxing nostalgic about "The Cubbies" and old-style Chicago machine politics.

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by: eddiecoyle @ Wed Dec 23, 2009 at 19:17:16 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I think Lydon's 'Connection' work... (6.00 / 1)

... didn't play to his journalistic strengths because they produced it in such a way as to indulge his ego.  I found Lydon a decent guy, but I also thought he thought too highly of his own opinions.  I got very very frustrated listening to the guy because he had this uncanny knack for finding interesting issues and interesting guests and then interviewing them badly by interjecting his own 'insights' into the issue overmuch.  I kept thinking 'you have this great guest with the real insight... shut up and listen!'.  This was especially true in areas of art.  He'd ask an interesting question, the guest would speak for a moment, then Lydon would interrupt with a longer interjection on his own opinion of the issue he just brought up.  It was a shame that such talent wound up using the format this way.  He shot himself in the foot.  I don't know if he thought his interjections would 'tease out' more interesting stuff from the guest or if he just liked the sound of his own opinions despite having a much more interesting (on the subject) interviewee right in front of him.  If it was the former it failed and if it was the latter he needs to stick to straight journalism.  If you want to know how to 'tease out the interesting' from the guest, study Terry Gross.

I find Scott Simon overly cute.  More beef and less fluff please.

"It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that things are difficult." - Seneca (5 BC - 65 AD)

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by: Mr Lynne @ Thu Dec 24, 2009 at 01:11:23 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Reasonable people can disgree. (5.50 / 2)

I'm not doubting Lydon's credentials in any fashion or his intellect, particularly.  I'm just saying that as the host of "The Connection," Lydon did not do all that great a job and Ashbrook is much more effective in the role.  I entirely agree with Mr Lynne's assessment of Lydon, too.  I found myself yelling at Lydon to stop talking on several occasions.  Too much talk on his part and too little listening.  Makes for annoying radio.  He could have used a little tutelage from the very best in the business, Terry Gross, as has been pointed out.  

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by: lightiris @ Thu Dec 24, 2009 at 08:30:52 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Ewww (0.00 / 0)

Prairie Home is horrible-where the jokes aren't funny, no one can sing, and nothing is above average

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by: jconway @ Thu Dec 24, 2009 at 21:03:38 PM CST

[ Parent ]

a thought just came to me... (6.00 / 1)

Mike, Lynne and I pretty much do this for free with LeftAhead.

Hey, NPR, I bet you could take us all on together and still save $200k...

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My thoughts are mine and mine alone. They should not be considered representative of any other organization, group or person - save me.

~Ryan.

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by: Ryepower12 @ Wed Dec 23, 2009 at 19:19:35 PM CST

Ryan - you time will come in Media... (0.00 / 0)

Of this I have no doubt.  

Deborah Sirotkin Butler
AmberPaw dot @aol.com

"Failure to plan is planning to fail."
Proverb

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by: AmberPaw @ Wed Dec 23, 2009 at 22:19:29 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Surprisingly gratuitous! (0.00 / 0)

This post (and thread) strikes me as coming from out of the blue, so to speak.

So a single NPR commentator gets a sweet gig. Why the rancor?

Our culture is filled with men and women who get similarly sweet gigs. By what standard (other than what the market will bear) do we say one is deserved and another not?

Is there any substantive difference between the Scott Simon's $300K+ annual salary and J. K. Rowling's astronomical return from "Harry Potter"? Let me offer my personal pet compensation peeve: I think that NO athlete deserves to get more in lifetime compensation than the average public school teacher. Let's do an "engineering approximation" — suppose a teacher works fifty years and averages $50K/year. That's $2.5M in a lifetime of service. I suspect that it isn't hard to identify some pretty "routine" professional athletes who earn that in a single season.

We've talked about executive compensation ratios in other threads, and perhaps that's one standard. A more general standard is to look at when an individual's income from residuals (interest, dividends, appreciation, etc.) exceeds their annual spending. Contemplation of both offers insight into the relationship between income, spending, consumption, wealth, personal "worth", and "prosperity".

Finally, I view all these matters as explorations of my personal beliefs rather than contemplated recommendations for government policy or law.

"If the Republicans will stop lying about the Democrats, the Democrats will stop telling the truth about the Republicans" -- Adlai Stevenson

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by: BrooklineTom @ Thu Dec 24, 2009 at 10:55:40 AM CST

Gratuitous? (0.00 / 0)

Meh.  I saw Adam's post; it inspired me to write something; so I did.  It's a blog, after all, so that's kinda how it works.  Also, it gave me a good excuse to talk about how I really, really don't like Weekend Edition.  ;-)

As for J.K. Rowland, her income is based on one thing only: the number of books she sells.  Pure free market.  Hard to argue with that.  Simon, on the other hand, has negotiated for himself a very (overly?) generous salary with a corporation funded in part by taxpayers.  If you don't want to contribute to J.K. Rowland's income, don't buy any Harry Potter stuff.  If you don't want to contribute to Scott Simon's, you'll have to leave the country.  So yeah, you bet there's a difference.

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by: David @ Thu Dec 24, 2009 at 12:59:48 PM CST

[ Parent ]

What's the market for talent? (6.00 / 1)

It strikes me that in fields of "talent" you can't just substitute somebody else in and get the same results.  This applies to authors, singers, personalities, athletes, etc.  The question I care about is whether or not Simon earns too much given his free market value.  If he'd bring in that much on the private market, than I don't mind him being paid as much as he is paid, provided his talent is legit.  Put another way, if they lost him to the free market and had to find someone else, would that new person generate the same ratings?

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by: stomv @ Thu Dec 24, 2009 at 13:46:38 PM CST

[ Parent ]

There is a wrinkle in determing... (0.00 / 0)

... the free market value talent in some cases because of attribution.  It really must be noted in the J.K. example, the amount of her book's performance that she can take direct credit is an huge proportion (there are other factors than her talent, of course, such as the price the publisher decides on and the marketing campaign).  By comparison it's very hard to tell what portion of WE's success to attribute to any one person.  As such, free market value can be easy or hard to measure for talent depending on the particular circumstances.  Of course it then follows that with increasing 'vagary' of attribution comes increased opportunity to get over or under paid (relative to a theoretical 'true' free market value).  So when David credit's his negotiating skills - 1) in his case the negotiation part of determining salary is much more important for him than J.K. for example, and 2) the problematic nature of attribution for his dollar (or success) contribution to the program means it could very well be that he's even underpaid (though I doubt it).

"It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that things are difficult." - Seneca (5 BC - 65 AD)

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by: Mr Lynne @ Thu Dec 24, 2009 at 14:19:09 PM CST

[ Parent ]

*lol* (0.00 / 0)

I don't even know Weekend Edition, because I don't like (and therefore usually don't listen to) NPR on weekends. Really. I know (ducking the rotten tomatoes from the Garrison Keillor fans).

Have a great holiday, David.

"If the Republicans will stop lying about the Democrats, the Democrats will stop telling the truth about the Republicans" -- Adlai Stevenson

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by: BrooklineTom @ Thu Dec 24, 2009 at 14:09:52 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Garrison Keillor (6.00 / 2)

Is not on NPR.

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by: dkennedy @ Thu Dec 24, 2009 at 14:53:59 PM CST

[ Parent ]

And thank the cosmic dust for that. (0.00 / 0)

He's something of a homophobic, anti-science crank posing as a folksy raconteur.  Talk about a sweet gig.  Ugh.  

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by: lightiris @ Fri Dec 25, 2009 at 08:53:41 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Where NPR gets its money (6.00 / 2)

David -- Relax, and hold off on renewing your passport. This is from NPR's website:

NPR supports its operations through a combination of membership dues and programming fees from over 860 independent radio stations, sponsorship from private foundations and corporations, and revenue from the sales  of transcripts, books, CDs, and merchandise. A very small percentage -- between one percent to two percent of NPR's annual budget -- comes from competitive grants sought by NPR from federally funded organizations, such as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

As you may know, the public radio stations that pay those dues also receive very little money from taxpayer funds. Stations that receive the most government funding tend to be isolated rural operations with few prospects for fundraising.

Bottom line: there is an incredibly tenuous connection between Scott Simon's salary and taxpayer funding.

Now, I'm just guessing, but I think it's safe to say that Simon is also far more involved in putting together his once-a-week show than the anchors of "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered" are on a daily basis. You are making it sound like Simon's job is exactly the same as the others. That's highly unlikely.

Put it this way: surely there are more (many more) than 40 hours of work that goes into producing a two-hour weekly radio show. (Keep in mind that WBUR's one-hour, weekly "Radio Boston" has several full-time staff members.) Since Simon doesn't have to anchor every day, he's available to do many more of those tasks himself.

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by: dkennedy @ Thu Dec 24, 2009 at 14:51:48 PM CST

[ Parent ]