Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication, WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "The Stringer."
Mr Rall has one tiny misleading set of figures, but his overall point is one with which I completely agree.
The misleading bit is comparing the salaries of the national radio hosts on NPR with the salaries of local radio hosts. National radio hosts mostly earn much more, in the neighbourhood of $40 million per annum.
But the comparison to ‘comparables’ is one I’ve hated for many years.
My standard example is the charity to feed starving children where the executives all get 7 figure incomes. ‘Why?’ we ask. ‘These are all executives of a billion dollar organisation, so we must compensate them the same as executives of any other billion dollar organisation,’ is the answer.
Those who contribute to a charity to feed the poor naïvely assume that the executives are also sacrificing to help feed the poor. Silly us. They are just executives, usually taking more than half of donations for themselves. Of course, they’ve earned their salaries by their hard work convincing people to contribute to alleviate hunger in children. The fact that they are not, in fact, alleviating that hunger is irrelevant in setting their salaries at an ‘equitable level’.
Likewise, we foolishly expect that the actors and executives who ask for our charity to alleviate childhood ignorance will contribute themselves, taking from us only the cost of production and modest salaries for the talent. Silly us.
The perennial attack on PBS/NPR was the brilliant strategy of Gingrich in the 90’s.
The network that is truly glib and self-satisfied really reports the important news with NO detectable difference from the “private” corporately-owned media.nnFor example, Lehrer’s show has allowed the pernicious, if civil, babble of Our Mr Brooks for too effin’ long.
Gingrich realized any perceived threat to PBS/NPR would freeze the liberals into its defense and thus distract them from dealing with the real issues. Newtie figured that, at worst, PBS/NPR would simply continue its cutesy, smarmy cover for its contribution the corporatization of the country.
For example, at the link below is a video of John Stewart mocking Obama for having swallowed that bait once again. http://tinyurl.com/9ptnzol
2 Comments.
Mr Rall has one tiny misleading set of figures, but his overall point is one with which I completely agree.
The misleading bit is comparing the salaries of the national radio hosts on NPR with the salaries of local radio hosts. National radio hosts mostly earn much more, in the neighbourhood of $40 million per annum.
But the comparison to ‘comparables’ is one I’ve hated for many years.
My standard example is the charity to feed starving children where the executives all get 7 figure incomes. ‘Why?’ we ask. ‘These are all executives of a billion dollar organisation, so we must compensate them the same as executives of any other billion dollar organisation,’ is the answer.
Those who contribute to a charity to feed the poor naïvely assume that the executives are also sacrificing to help feed the poor. Silly us. They are just executives, usually taking more than half of donations for themselves. Of course, they’ve earned their salaries by their hard work convincing people to contribute to alleviate hunger in children. The fact that they are not, in fact, alleviating that hunger is irrelevant in setting their salaries at an ‘equitable level’.
Likewise, we foolishly expect that the actors and executives who ask for our charity to alleviate childhood ignorance will contribute themselves, taking from us only the cost of production and modest salaries for the talent. Silly us.
The perennial attack on PBS/NPR was the brilliant strategy of Gingrich in the 90’s.
The network that is truly glib and self-satisfied really reports the important news with NO detectable difference from the “private” corporately-owned media.nnFor example, Lehrer’s show has allowed the pernicious, if civil, babble of Our Mr Brooks for too effin’ long.
Gingrich realized any perceived threat to PBS/NPR would freeze the liberals into its defense and thus distract them from dealing with the real issues. Newtie figured that, at worst, PBS/NPR would simply continue its cutesy, smarmy cover for its contribution the corporatization of the country.
For example, at the link below is a video of John Stewart mocking Obama for having swallowed that bait once again. http://tinyurl.com/9ptnzol