Talk, talk, talk
Staff writer Margaret Moffett Banks talks about the story on non-profits that she writes about in our Sunday edition. In the audio file, she discusses how she came upon the story and the difficulties she encountered. Her storyline is this: Women leaders of nonprofits make 60 percent of what their male peers do.
This is the first of a new weekly podcast that staff tech guru Herb Everett is hosting called The Beat. Its purpose: We'll talk about the stories you see -- and don't see -- in the News & Record in order to demystify news gathering, allow our readers and listeners the chance to get to know us better and dig into the stories behind the stories.
Comments (1)
To report abuse of the comment feature on this site, please use the feedback form at the bottom of any page.
I must say, I am appalled at Sunday’s lead article regarding non-profit salaries. You claim women are not getting paid their fair share for the work they are doing but the numbers you published don’t show that. The numbers show women are not in the highest non-profit jobs – the majority of which are in the health care industry.
If you want to show that women aren’t getting hired for the best of the non-profit jobs, fine. But, if you want to prove women aren’t getting their fair share, show how similarly placed men and women are making different amounts.
What’s really appalling is that your own reporter admits (in her audio chat) that you have compared apples to oranges and that you could have broken the numbers down by industry and taken a closer look at them, but didn’t. She even says it would have been “easy.”
Comparing apples to apples within the data you published, let’s look at higher education. The president of Guilford College, a man, earns $200,000 running a school with 2,511 students. The president of Salem College, a woman, earns $194,651 running a school with 1,120 students (student enrollment from school website). That doesn’t seem out of line.
The president of Greensboro College, a man, earns $166,000 running a school with 1,300 students. Maybe he should ask for a raise.
The president of Wake Forest University makes $242,000 a year. The president of Elon: $278,121. I think all would agree both schools are much larger than the three previously mentioned. Does it make sense to imply that their leaders earn more than the woman running Salem simply because they are men?
I could go on, (secondary education looks like a promising place for comparison) but I have done enough research already – research the News & Record should have done before this piece was published.
The article brings to mind the old saw about “lies, damn lies and statistics.” The statistics generated from the data have been used improperly, to substantiate something they don’t prove. That’s a problem, and I believe it is why the media are losing credibility.
Too often articles that meet preconceived notions don’t have to pass the sniff test. The basis of your story – that women in non-profits are not getting paid their fair share may well be true.
But, if there really is a pay gap, you haven’t done a very good job in presenting the case, because the numbers you published don’t support it. In fact, the numbers you chose to use leads one to believe you did understand numbers, and used only those that highlighted the point you wanted to make.
Perhaps the best statistic, and one that was not used, is that while women hold 38 percent of the non-profit jobs paying more than $50,000, they only earn 26 percent of the paid salaries.
If you want to write about how women haven’t reached the top in the big non-profits, go for it. You have the data to support it. Instead, you wrote a different story. This article should have never been published, much less anchored your Sunday edition.
* If there are any errors in this, I apologize, I did not have three weeks and a bevy of editors to proof my copy.
Posted on June 6, 2005 2:48 AM