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Amazing what you can find online

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Dave Winer mentions a contribution he made to Boston’s NPR affiliate, WBUR. He’s curious, though, about the salaries of the folks, such as the general Manager Jane Christo’s pay:

How do I call in and ask questions on the air? How much salary does Ms Christo draw? How many execs are there at WBUR and what are their salaries? And how about the talent, how much of my money do they get? I suspect that public radio in the US is like most other industries, execs control the money, and get most of it, and don’t do very much for it.

A quick google search on “wbur” and “salaries” brings up a reference to Dave’s friend, Christopher Lydon, as luck would have it. It seems that when Lydon worked at the station, he was the highest paid talent, at 230,000. And he wanted more:

I like ‘’The Connection,’’ but I was stunned by the size of Lydon’s salary and the fact that he and his producer still weren’t satisfied; they wanted an ownership stake in the show. When Lydon and his cohorts at WBUR ask listeners like me to support the news, I knew salaries were an integral part of the news, but I had no idea they were such a large part.

The article also makes a good point about how we view charities differently from other types of business:

Kate Berseth, who has done fund-raising and fund-raising consulting for more than 10 years, said donors tend to overreact to high salaries. All too often, she said, donors harbor the incorrect assumption that ‘’do-gooder charitable work’’ isn’t worth as much as for-profit work.

Lots of online links about WBUR and salaries, and Lydon no longer being at WBUR. Rather than Dave calling the station and demanding that the station discuss what Jane Christo makes online, perhaps he should ask his friend, Lydon, what she was making when she fired him?

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