Saturday, July 18, 2009
Nice work if you can get it.
London Mayor Boris Johnson dismissed the £250,000-a-year he earns from a second job as "chicken feed". Mr Johnson, who is paid nearly £140,000 for his day job, was quizzed over his lucrative contract with the Daily Telegraph during an interview for the BBC's HARDTalk programme. He responded: "It's chicken feed."
...Well, I knew that newspaper columnists were paid good money for their copy but I was shocked to read that Boris Johnson was paid £250,000 a year for his weekly column in the Daily Telegraph. For him to describe this pay as chicken feed is very arrogant and it is an insult to London voters on normal pay. He is supposed to represent people and have his feet on the ground but his attitude to his side-line shows he is living in another world. Why the Daily Telegraph are paying so much for his column is beyond me as there are plenty of journalists out there looking for work. Okay, his brand is a household name but surely newspaper readers want content and are not bothered by the author's name.
I think there are many journalists working for regional newspapers who will envy the pay lavished on Boris for his weekly column. Regular journalists work all week for probably a tenth of what Boris gets for his Sunday morning side-line. I am all for paying for merit or content but not for paying big bucks for celebrity writers to get on their soap-box.
London Mayor Boris Johnson dismissed the £250,000-a-year he earns from a second job as "chicken feed". Mr Johnson, who is paid nearly £140,000 for his day job, was quizzed over his lucrative contract with the Daily Telegraph during an interview for the BBC's HARDTalk programme. He responded: "It's chicken feed."
...Well, I knew that newspaper columnists were paid good money for their copy but I was shocked to read that Boris Johnson was paid £250,000 a year for his weekly column in the Daily Telegraph. For him to describe this pay as chicken feed is very arrogant and it is an insult to London voters on normal pay. He is supposed to represent people and have his feet on the ground but his attitude to his side-line shows he is living in another world. Why the Daily Telegraph are paying so much for his column is beyond me as there are plenty of journalists out there looking for work. Okay, his brand is a household name but surely newspaper readers want content and are not bothered by the author's name.
I think there are many journalists working for regional newspapers who will envy the pay lavished on Boris for his weekly column. Regular journalists work all week for probably a tenth of what Boris gets for his Sunday morning side-line. I am all for paying for merit or content but not for paying big bucks for celebrity writers to get on their soap-box.
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