Weighing in at the Tribune Pay Scale
There was a bit of an uprising inside the Tribune recently. Some good came out of it. The president of the company learned a lesson in the psychology of newspaper people. After all, they’re his savages–he should know how they tick.
“We were being marinated,” says the reporter.
As far as anyone could make it out, the Tribune had decided to turn itself into a little civil service, with everyone’s work tidied into grades, job descriptions, and salary ranges. The young woman let it be known that an actual consulting firm, the Hayes Group, had had a hand in the sorry business.
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(The Tribune’s ridiculous idea was that salary ranges could be kept confidential.)
“Simply to think you could get away with that is unbelievable!” says a reporter who was there. “For a group like us! Total iconoclasts! And we’re supposed to take it and smile and applaud politely at the end of a meeting where they’ve stuffed this up our rear end!”
Doug Kneeland, associate editor of the editorial page, spoke up. He told Madigan that the Tribune’s pitch had reminded him of the report on estimated Soviet forces that the Pentagon comes up with each year just before asking Congress for a zillion dollars.
