TW: Many folks myself included included lament the deterioration of network news. As media has disaggregated its quality has fallen whilst its biases towards conflict and sensationalism have increased. One thing has not changed since the media glory days of the 80's- very high anchor salaries. What this says though is the market is more interested in style than substance. If there was a market for more insightful, more deeply reported news presumably air brushed folks like Brian Williams would not pull down such big bucks and folks like Glenn Beck would be on local direct access channel with the other loonies rather than national cable.
From Columbia Journalism Review:
"...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. Few figures, I think, better capture the absurd financial structure of the network news.
This is not a new development, of course. It’s been unfolding since 1986, when billionaire Laurence Tisch bought CBS and eviscerated its news division in order to boost profits...But the issue seems worth revisiting in light of the recent naming of Diane Sawyer to replace Charlie Gibson as the anchor of ABC’s World News. We don’t yet know how much Sawyer is going to be paid, but it will no doubt surpass Gibson’s current estimated salary of $8 million. Sawyer will thus be perpetuating the corrosive, top-heavy system of the network news..."
http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/katie_and_diane_the_wrong_ques.php?page=all
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