When newsrooms fight

A controversy that has broken out over a few thousand dollars at the University of Minnesota Daily newspaper.

In an “open letter to readers” today, two editors — Andy Mannix and Mike Rose — criticize the decision to give $3,000 bonuses to the paper’s president and business officer, while noting that the editor-in-chief didn’t get a dime.

“These bonuses come at a time when the Daily is facing dire financial hardship,” they wrote. “The most impactful budget cuts made to the Daily this semester include massive pay cuts (reaching 50 percent for some), discontinuing a Friday print edition and cutting entire departments and sections of the newspaper.”

The brouhaha has spilled over into the paper’s comments section, which mostly favored the bonuses, but for those of us worrying about young whippersnappers coming into the profession from college, we were shocked to learn that college journalists appear to be equally worried about the young whippersnappers coming from high school.

The problem with most newspapers is the journalists. Don’t let yourself think there arent hundreds of younger, smarter kids graduating from High School right NOW who would gladly fill your shoes.

Would you rather they divied up their salaried bonus and you kids all walked away with $3.00?

Get off your high horse and find something better to cover.

(h/t: Anna Weggel)