Side Note

White House reporters are making bank

According to a BuzzFeed News report published Monday, some Washington, D.C.-based political reporters, who work for publications including The New York Times and The Washington Post, are making more money than ever in their side gigs as contributors with major news networks like CNN and MSNBC. Rates for political reporters who exclusively discuss their scoops on a given network range between $30,000 and $50,000 per year according to the BuzzFeed report — paid on top of the reporter’s salary from their main employer — and can go as high as $250,000.

Donald Trump during a 2015 campaign rally in Dallas, Texas.

Donald Trump during a 2015 campaign rally in Dallas, Texas.

But being paid well doesn't always lead to happiness, according to the handsomely-paid reporters who spoke to BuzzFeed. “The money,” one anonymous White House reporter told the site, “also comes with a lot of misery.” That misery comes in the form of long hours, “frequent attacks on their profession” from the president, and living “under the threat of a morning-altering Trump tweet,” BuzzFeed reported.

Of course, plenty of other reporters, including those who don’t have lucrative tv speaking gigs, deal with long hours and the unreasonably fast news cycle — and most of them aren't really being paid very well at all. Meanwhile, local newsrooms are struggling to stay afloat, due to a combination of corporate mismanagement and declining revenue.