alt.NPR: Youthcast from PRX

Here's a fun fact that's been making it's way around the internet today:

“Katie Couric’s annual salary is more than the entire annual budgets of NPR’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered combined. Couric’s salary comes to an estimated $15 million a year; NPR spends $6 million a year on its morning show and $5 million on its afternoon one. NPR has seventeen foreign bureaus (which costs it another $9.4 million a year); CBS has twelve.” (Michael Massing, for the Columbia Journalism Review)

Massing continues on about how the media's coverage of itself has been focussing on the WILD NOTION that Diane Sawyer and Katie Couric, two LADIES, could anchor news, which is not really much of a controversial topic. Massing wonders why journalists are not questioning the pay scale and the budgets of news organizations, and instead probing a less self-reflective controversy.

Granted, Katie Couric's audience size is a wee bit bigger than NPR's and she does work for a commercial news network. But does anyone else find this a little crazy? Think of all the new journalists CBS could hire to expand their foreign bureaus if Ms. Couric took a mere $3 million paycut.

UPDATE: The average viewership for CBS Evening News is 6 million. Listenership for Morning Edition and All Things Considered? 14 million (a little more rough of a figure). Massing has been getting crap on his comments for comparing commercial media to non-profit media, but I think he's just trying to say: Use your money wisely, CBS.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.