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Magazine execs know only too well the financial headwinds facing their industry: declining print readership, digital ad models that fail to replace the success of print, downsized budgets and shrinking workforces.
Responding to the annual Folio: salary survey, some editors acknowledged this by stating they were simply grateful to still be employed. Others expressed frustration in their responses to the survey, including a managing editor who bemoaned the “devaluation of the written word and real-life experiences.”
A few disenchanted individuals even remarked they were preparing to ditch journalism entirely, like the respondent who planned to “jump ship into content-driven marketing communications”.
Key takeaways from the survey:
- Digital media jobs in editorial management offered 41 percent more in median total compensation than their print counterparts.
- Digital media jobs overall proved more far lucrative than print-exclusive ones, offering 28 percent more in median total compensation.
- B2B media offered the stingiest salaries and bonuses among publishing categories.
- The gender pay gap persisted among the 2018 survey sample as a whole, with men earning not only a higher median base salary, but bonuses greater than those of women
- The value of publishing industry experience remains encouragingly strong: Editorial employees with 20 or more years experience earned 68 percent more than those with less than 10 years under their belts.
- Employers prized experience more among managing editors than editors-in-chief: those with the most years in the industry earned a median total compensation of 65 percent more than those with the least.
- Public companies and those publishers earning $10 million or more in revenue were predictably far more generous with salary and bonus money.
- Qualities that made a difference for content creators’ paychecks were productivity and an expertise in digital media. Employees writing five or more stories a week, as opposed to four or less, netted $11,000 more in median base salary.
For the full survey results, click here…
