Sometimes this column appears behind a paywall, maybe now too. People without a subscription cannot read it. This often leads to outrage among non-subscribers. Or at least to a slightly passive-aggressive comment on social media like ‘Can’t read the piece. Paywall. Shame.’
Thats crazy. Suppose you hear someone talking enthusiastically about his vegetable bag. Because he has a subscription, he receives a bunch of tubers, cabbages and root vegetables (the cheerful seasonal food of winter) delivered to his home every week. He talks lyrically about this week’s parsnip. You get excited and want that parsnip too.
Do you demand that your conversation partner give you some too? Do you high-pitchedly ask for free parsnips from the bag seller? And you sigh in annoyance when no one wants to give you the parsnips for free: ‘I can’t eat them. No subscription. Shame.’? I do not think so. You pass up the delicious white carrots, or you take out a subscription.
It is different with journalism. Although many people work hard to produce a newspaper every day, not only by the piece stickers whose names are printed, but also by designers, photographers, printers, illustrators and editors, many news consumers expect to receive the articles for free. can get.
Perhaps because there are also free ‘news sites’ that take over pieces from others for little money and hardly have to pay staff. They give the impression that journalism is free. Nothing is less true. Good journalism costs a lot of money. If you see how much work goes into such a newspaper, the price of a subscription is still quite reasonable (the fact that not everyone can afford it says more about the sad situation in our country).
Now the reasonable price of newspapers has risen sharply in the past year. Vaccording to the FD NRC the most popular subscription has become about 10 percent more expensive and de Volkskrant about 9 percent. In addition, advertising revenues have also increased. Logical, if you want to absorb the blows of inflation. However, over the past two years, employers have not ensured that the makers of the newspapers, not only the piece stickers, but also the photographers, illustrators, printers and editors, were also corrected for inflation. And most of them already earn very little and are not fortunate enough, like me, to earn more than enough money elsewhere.
Of course they are angry about that. Especially because the money is there. What makes it even more poignant is that the shareholders of DPG and Mediahuis (the Publisher of NRC) have done extremely well over the past two years: the dividend payment at Mediahuis increased by 17 percent in 2022 and at DPG the payment doubled to 80 million euros. While newspaper prices rose and employees lost money, shareholders pocketed millions.
A new collective labor agreement is now being negotiated. The employers’ offer is still too meager. That is why the newspaper makers are taking cautious action. Very sweet for the time being, with messages on social media and a work stoppage of one hour (which of course the passionate darlings compensate in their own time). Certainly a social newspaper that writes daily about injustice in the world must pay its own employees and the countless freelancers sufficiently.
In De Consumer, Teun van de Keuken searches for the truth behind the marketing campaign every week.
2023-12-10 15:05:47
#Newspapers #pay #employees
