Top executives at the country’s largest media companies continued to reel in multimillion-dollar pay packages in 2009, a year of widespread cost-cutting throughout the industry, The New York Times reports this morning. In several cases, the packages even increased from the year before. Among the executives listed: Gannett Chairman and CEO Craig Dubow (left), whose 2009 annual pay soared to $4.4 million, up 17% from the year before. Last year, Gannett eliminated 6,500 jobs, largely through layoffs. During the same period, GCI's stock zoomed up 86%, closing at $14.85 a share on Dec. 31.
Monday, May 03, 2010
NYT spotlights big 2009 paydays for media chiefs
Top executives at the country’s largest media companies continued to reel in multimillion-dollar pay packages in 2009, a year of widespread cost-cutting throughout the industry, The New York Times reports this morning. In several cases, the packages even increased from the year before. Among the executives listed: Gannett Chairman and CEO Craig Dubow (left), whose 2009 annual pay soared to $4.4 million, up 17% from the year before. Last year, Gannett eliminated 6,500 jobs, largely through layoffs. During the same period, GCI's stock zoomed up 86%, closing at $14.85 a share on Dec. 31.
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Anybody outside of the top brass who reads this and still comes to the company's defense needs to go for psychiatric help.
ReplyDeleteThere was a time when corporate CEOs tried to hide their white collar thievery. Now they seem perfectly comfortable going above board with it. The shock is that average people not only accept this but, sometimes, defend it. Apparently, the thought process is that they, too, might someday become a CEO.
Of course, the current power structure is doing everything it can to keep the lower classes right where they are. We should all be outraged.
What this report doesn't note is that the massive bonus Dubow received in 2009 is worth even more than it would have been in '08 because inflation is at a standstill and real estate is dirt cheap. If he decides to invest in property now, he'll reap even more millions in profit over the next 20 years.
Dubow and his ilk must have some sort of character defect. Anyone with any shred of respectability would not accept a raise or a bonus that fed directly from a pipeline that sent legions to unemployment.
ReplyDeleteAnd please, don't tell me Dubow and company proved their worth by virtue of the stock rise, which to a great degree was also linked to "trimming the fat."
Worth repeating from my post in March: No one should be rewarded for a stock's rise, when they made decisions that contributed to the stock's plunge in the first place.
ReplyDeleteI am reading this while watching Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs on the Charlie Rose Show, and it reminds me how much Blankfein is like Dubow. They just don't get it. Blankfein says his company did nothing wrong promoting securities while selling them short on the side. Dubow sees nothing wrong with gutting newspapers (and some of them are in terrible shape -- read them) while accepting a huge salary and cashing in on stock options. Trust me, there's the making of a revolution if these executives keep up this line. This is not going to be a nation of insiders who use their positions to enrich themselves, and the hoi polloi left to fish on their own wiles.
ReplyDeleteJust finished reading the NYT article.
ReplyDeleteThe broadcast execs are topping the most highly paid financial executive, and talk about percentage increases, Arthur Sulzberger Jr. reeled in a whopping 171 percent raise to $4.8 million.
And look at McClatchy's Gary Pruitt - up 61 percent to $2.6 million.
It's like they're still back in the glory days!
Well, Dubow should now have his $1.5 million bonus taken away from him since he got it when he hired Saridakis. This place is a joke.
ReplyDeleteLet's hope his kids don't follow too closely in his footsteps. I'd like to see someone do a story about adult childrens' reactions to some of the CEO dad/mom pay.
ReplyDeleteI once wrote about what it's like to grow up the child of a well-known entrepreneur -- fathers like Donald Trump, Hugh Hefner and Sam Walton. It ain't pretty.
ReplyDelete