NOTEBOOK – One Good Read: Anonymous Google spreadsheets rise to bare staff salaries in the open
KATE HAYDEN Nov 14, 2019 | 4:46 pm
1 min read time
204 wordsArts and Culture, Business Record Insider, The Insider NotebookAn online push for pay transparency is swelling in one crowd-sourced document among journalists nationwide. The “Real Media Salaries” spreadsheet started just this week among journalism Twitter and digital communities and now has the Washington Post and other organizations reporting on what their own staff members report as salaries. Nearly 900 salaries are listed, along with the individual’s job title, experience in years, gender expression, ethnicity and job location. As the Post notes, it is illegal for employers to retaliate against workers for discussing wages with their colleagues, but a 2010 study found about 50% of workers said they were either contractually forbidden or strongly discouraged from discussing pay with colleagues — and pay secrecy disproportionately affects women and people of color. As an aside, I’d also note that this isn’t the first time journalists have anonymously crowd-sourced industry news: As #MeToo rose in October 2017, the industry-famous Sh*tty Media Men list was developed to warn women in journalism of men accused of sexual misconduct in positions of power — professors, editors, photographers, producers and writers (at the time, I was sent a link to the list through a journalism friend). It seems like the crowd-sourced spreadsheet of open secrets is on the rise.