Where is Outrage Over CEO Pay at NY Times???????

Written by: Aaron Katsman | April 26, 2009

Thanks to THEGRUBSPOT.com for this post:

How ironic. The paper that led the crusade against excessive executive pay and bonuses, is just as guilty as those that it regularly assails. The New York Times with over $1.3 billion in debt and only $34 million left in the piggy bank managed to pay some hefty bonuses to top executives.

According to the Huffington Post: ” According to the New York Times proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, corporate president and CEO Janet L. Robinson received a total compensation package valued at $5.58 million in 2008, up well over a million from the $4.14 million she received in 2007, and the $4.4 million she received in 2006.

Robinson’s $1 million base salary has remained the same for three years. In 2008, Robinson’s total compensation included, in addition to her base salary: $1.6 million in stock awards, $1.5 million in options, a $35,000 bonus, $562,500 from the non-equity incentive plan, $898,171 from the “Change in Pension Value and Non-qualified Deferred Compensation Earnings,” and “other compensation” of $46,368.

A number of NYT staffers contacted said that there was considerably more resentment voiced on the newsroom floor, and in newspaper guild meetings, about Robinson’s pay than about compensation awarded to Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the NYT board chairman and publisher.

Staffers noted that even though Sulzberger received bonuses and other compensation more than doubling to $2.4 million his base salary of $1,087,000, his total compensation package has declined substantially over the past three years from $3.4 million in 2007 and $4.4 million in 2006. In addition to his 2008 base salary, Sulzberger’s total compensation included a bonus of $38,045, stock awards of $54,443, option awards of $29,832, a non-equity compensation plan distribution of $597,850, a change in pension plan valuation and non-qualified deferred compensation worth $559,826, and $48,878 in “other compensation,” according to the proxy.”

Wow. Nothing like hypocracy. Where is President Obama’s outrage? Why are we supposed to be upset when Wall-Street execs, make millions, but the heads of a newspaper that continues to support the current President is let off the hook.

A double standard?

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2 Comments »

Comment by lennyp on April 26, 2009

There is one key difference here. The executives on Wall Street, at the big three, etc were complicit in creating this crisis. Auto makers were more interested in padding their pockets than providing product (big, heavy pollution, unsafe gas hogs GM Aztec, RAM vs Rigdeline, Prius, Civic, etc.) Wall Street was more concerned with financially engineer profits than producing anything useful (derivatives, toxic asset burying, etc) These people showed an utter disregard for the well-being of anything or anyone else in their drive for short-term profit.
Newspapers got a double whammy not of their own doing. The internet and financial crash. I don’t know what the newspapers could have done about the internet, though they are slow in adapting. Nor do I know what they could have done about the financial crisis aside from not cheerleading the perpetrators on. Whether the CEO of the NY Times earned her income I don’t know, she should however have cut it way back in this crisis. If she limited herself to $500k (a liveable pay in NYC) maybe fewer reporters could have lost.

I don’t belie

Comment by Arlene Herring on April 26, 2009

There’s a huge difference: the newspaper business is not going to take handouts from the government. I would love it if people bailed out The Times, just not President Obama: once the government has a financial stake in The Times, there goes its objectivity, its credibility, and our freedom of the press. More people need to subscribe to the paper to save it. It takes a village here too.

Brooklyn, NY

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