I'm Working For The Wrong Dept at the NY Post

Everyone's read about the gossip page scandal at the NY Post. The main fallout for me is phone calls from my family and friends wondering when I'm going to buy my yacht and asking why I don't sell positive DVD reviews to the studios for $10,000 a pop. (Uh, cause no one asked...and it would be WRONG!) This guy is accused of asking for hundreds of thousands of dollars and an annual $10,000 stipend to plant good stories in Page Six. Now I read Liz Smith's column in the Post today (she is syndicated and is not technically on staff here but is a signature part of the paper. She discusses the demise of the NYTimes foolish attempt at gossip. One reason she says it failed? "Few successful columnists can afford to work for what the Times would pay." Good Lord, I'm assuming that a staff writer at the NYT doing an entire section like a weekly gossip column would get at least $60,000 to $80,000 and if they were an established name surely significantly more. Apparently, that's peanuts to her? I definitely chose the wrong area to write for.