FT journalists demanding $80K starting salary

Financial Times journalists are demanding a minimum starting salary of $80,000 (£63,000) in a dispute over pay, reports James Warrington of The Telegraph.

Warrington reports, “The newspaper’s American union is locked in discussions with bosses amid concerns that current wages are not ‘anywhere close’ to livable.

“Under current plans, the FT’s US-based staff have been offered a minimum wage of $60,000.

“But the US guild has called for this figure to be increased by a third, pointing to the importance of retaining journalists, especially at entry level. It added that the annual median rent in New York City is $39,600.

“Robert Armstrong, the newspaper’s US financial commentator, said: ‘The right career move for the average FT journalist – that is to say, a good journalist – is to leave.'”

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Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.