The Economics of Independent Media are Just Really Tough

n+1 Job Posting Gets People Both Mad and Defensive

n+1 did one of the most necessary and thankless tasks in media: post about a job opening and include the actual salary range. The number is above the median U.S. salary of $49,500, but the gig is in Brooklyn, which I can report from personal experience is considerably more expensive than the median place to live (which apparently is Cleveland?).

The strongest negative reactions were as predictable as they were understandable: this just doesn’t seem like enough for the responsibilities, n+1’s reputation, and the realities of trying to build a professional life and career in New York. The loudest defender of n+l responded to these criticisms with perhaps unadvised (and largely deleted) as far as I can tell) vitriol. (side note: I am not going to link to individual X posts here. If you are interested, you can search for n+1 and see the terrain quickly).

I have a little perspective to give on the subject of running an independent media organization that doesn’t fit neatly into “this salary is shameful” or the “It is what it is.” I am also going to assume for the moment that n+1 is not radically overpaying some top executive person somewhere or renting ungodly expensive office space, and of course if this is the case then those dollars should be redirected. And as a registered nonprofit, n+1 does not have some corporate overlord siphoning off dollars that could be used to raise the salaries of people working there.

The truth that bridges these extreme ends of responses is this: there is not much money in independent media. There is even less money for indie media that has a mission of some kind. And that is what n+1 is, and I have a ton of respect for them. My guess is that they are probably paying as much as they can across the board and wish they could pay more. To say that they should unionize is a nice sentiment, but that assumes that there are marginal dollars available to flow to employees from the corporation. For employees of The New York Times or Conde Nast, this is an on-going negotiation, as those companies, over decades, have built brands and businesses that can be quite profitable–and can be even more profitable if employee salaries are kept as low as they can be. I will go farther to say that a company should be profitable, if only because it allows for a margin of safety and the possibility of growth.

So if a company like n+1 simply cannot pay more, what to do? Should they….just stop operating? What is the next move? I don’t have an answer and neither do people bemoaning this job and other lower-paying full-time positions in media.

Nor does it feel right to shrug your shoulders and say them’s the breaks. Because I think we want people who care about arts and ideas to be able to build lives around their jobs. And we would like them to be able to do it without having family money or some other leg up not generally available. The answer to this question isn’t one of hiring policy or unionization or “you could always just go be a cop.”