The average monthly salary of a newspaper employee is US$170 (around US$ 5 per day) and there is a 1% annual increase in the salary – although the annual inflation rate of the country is 30%. Making it increasingly impossible for newspaper employees to continue working with such a low income because the raise is just simply not enough. A dismal future lies ahead for newspaper employees they are going from rags to tatters and eventually will become absolutely dirt poor. Things are very grim and judging from the attitude of the newspaper owners the situation will only get much worse as time goes by.
Strangely enough, newspaper owners hire people in very senior positions who have nothing at all to do with running a newspaper, these people earn a monthly salary which is around US$7000 (almost US$240 per day) they have company maintained cars and many other perk and benefits. It is the strangest fact that those who have nothing to do with taking out the newspaper everyday are being paid 35 times more than those who are responsible for taking it out.
The government recently gave newspaper owners permission to start their own radio and TV channels. Suddenly the money the newspaper owners claimed they never had, immediately surfaced. It is being used to start their radio and TV channels and the even have lots of money is being spent to improve the décor of offices. Even then, they continue to say that cannot afford to pay higher salaries to their employees or improve their benefits. This is the a sort of penny-wise pound-foolish attitude. In return for this protection by the government, the newspaper owners show their gratitude by being incredibly mean to their employees. They are completely devious, they want to hire highly experienced and educated people yet at the same time are not prepared to pay them a fair amount and given them decent benefits.
The quality of our newspapers (or magazines) is terrible because the people who own them do not care about such things and even less about content. The content is bad because the people they have hired to check and edit articles and news items are underpaid to an extreme (it is more or less slave labour). For this reason the employees they do not have the motivation and the incentive to do a good job, they do not expect to be promoted and be given decent increase in their salary and benefits. In a truly competitive environment, newspaper employees would be able find jobs in similar newspapers, besides receiving higher salaries they would get better benefits.
The operative word is nothing can be done - because lots of influential and powerful people who can stop this injustice are being massively bribed.. Even with the existence of computers, newspapers still require many capable and competent people but our newspaper owners would rather not hire anyone – they would prefer to have slave labour.
In the existing circumstances, our newspaper industry stands to gain the most from the policies of the government. Because it has been awarded maximum protection from competitors and the greatest benefits like subsidies on paper and ink. It is guarded from an extensive competitive business environment.
If this environment of absolute protection were to go, things would be very different. Any one would be able start his own newspaper or magazine. Even foreign newspapers and magazines start functioning here – it would cause tremendous damage in the way the newspaper industry is conducting its business.
if the government were to break the cocoon in which the newspaper industry is in at moment, more people would start investing heavily in it, the existing lot of useless newspaper owners would vanish in no time . Because they are not used to competition and would be unable to fend off those who would eventually start taking their place. It would also mean any one with the slightest experience of working in a newspaper would be able to start one of his own, but this hardly ever happens.
In a truly competitive business environment. An employee belonging to some other industry always leaves his existing employer and starts working for a rival company – because he is being offered a higher salary and more benefits. In a competitive environment, newspaper owners would have to face this. But right now they are now they are not at all used to negotiating salaries and benefits for anyone they intend to hire.
But no professional would ever work a single day if he were not given proper appointment letters with all the things which have been agreed upon not mentioned. Newspaper owners can get away with hiring people and paying them less than the minimum wage and are maintained in unofficial capacity. They prefer to maintain an environment to of absolute depression and misery to persist – these people are not really good businessmen if they were they would consider everyone whom they have employed an asset because it would make their newspaper stand out and it would sell more.
However presently newspaper owners are not concerned about increasing sales, it is the least of their considerations. They entirely rely on advertisements, particularly the ones which they receive from the government, which is their main source of income. Private companies and the government are being cheated about the circulation figures of any newspaper, most advertisers do not have the means and even the resources to verify whether the owner of any newspaper is telling the truth or not. It could also very well be in the interest of the junta that newspaper sales stay as limited as possible – because they would mean a greater sense of awareness and create more involvement in the affairs of the country.
By not printing less copies, the newspaper owner is saving on ink, film, and paper. In order to ensure that the government or private company keep advertising in the newspapers, lots of news is not printed, the type which could would offend the advertisers for instance a scandal, in the government or in a private company. Printing such news would mean that the government or a particular private company may stop advertising.
Recently a news item was published in about the state owned airline which was not to the liking of the state-owned airline and the airline threatened to never to advertise in that newspaper again. The newspaper owner promised to print a rejoinder and let off the reporter with a warning. If this particular newspaper had firm foundations in circulation and a huge readership, then it would not be concerned about threats from companies and even government organisations..Since that is not the case, the greatest fear of a newspaper owner is that they would lose advertising income – because that happens to be their only true income. The motto of newspaper owners is ‘the people do not have the right to know’.
Newspaper owners resort to self-censorship, in order to ensure that keep on receiving ads. Our newspapers have shown how unethical they really are, instead of having news on the front page, they have a full-page advertisement, and it shows how little they value news itself. For reporters the cost of commuting is very high so they never leave the newspaper office, because they know they will have to pay from their own pocket and the owner will never ever compensate them for the trip. What is even weirder is if a reporter on his own initiative spends his own money and comes up with a scoop - the owner will never reward such a reporter. Scoops are just as worthless, for newspaper owners must as much as excellent editing, for this reason alone genuine investigative reporting does not exist.
Newspaper employees are the ones who are suffering the most financially – because no system exists to protect them from the abysmally pathetic manner in which media owners run their affairs. There is however the Newspaper Employees Act and the Wage Award, these are supposed to look after the interests of the employees of newspapers (and other publications), but the newspaper owners do not care one way or another about violating those laws. They take complete advantage of the mass corruption which is prevalent in the country by bribing virtually everyone whom they can anyone would be in a position to enforce those laws.
Except for the advertising staff - all other newspaper employees are considered useless. Journalists are seen as liabilities not assets. Just because the advertising staffs are responsible for collecting ads the newspaper and receive money for the ads, they are considered most valuable asset. There is this constant bickering between journalists and the advertising people. The journalist says that there would be no newspaper without news, the advertising staffs say without advertisements there would be no newspaper. A newspaper can survive if it has news which people are interested in reading – because that would increase sales – increased sales means rise in circulation.
A genuine and unbiased audit of how much a newspaper is circulated. This would justify whether that newspaper should receive ads or not and what they are charging for advertisements is correct or not. There are representative organisations of journalists which have in their power to literally bring the newspaper owners on their knees and force them to improve things, even make them pay the Wage Award in an instant. But as many newspaper employees suspect either they are completely helpless in preventing the present deteriorating situation or they too are taking huge bribes from the newspaper owners.
Not a single member of newspaper industry has had their accounts audited. Therefore, the government really does not know how much they owe in taxes. Newspaper owners are pathological tax evaders and any person who is in a position to do anything about this be paid to look the other way.
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