Ezra Klein: Last Post on Merit Pay

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October 17, 2007

Last Post on Merit Pay

Zengerle responds here. Like Wikipedia, I maintain that it requires measurable criteria, not just subjective judgment, and since there's no agreed-upon set of criteria for journalists, we are, by definition, not a profession working off pay-for-performance standards. But I think Jason and I are just going to have to disagree on this one, because it's boring for you guys (also: Does Jason really mean to suggest that underfunded non-profits don't carry around deadweight personnel?) So to close this off, I'll just say that I think Matt makes a bunch of good points here on the odd intersection between journalists and market forces, and how dependent we are on the favor of rich folks and foundations.

October 17, 2007 | Permalink

Comments

Haven't you heard? Matt's in the doghouse with all the feminists including you. He said, believe it or not, he said, that a certain study had questionable results.

And because of that, he's now a male privileged douchebag pro-dead woman reichtard blogger.

Now I understand why you're always afraid of telling Amanda Marcotte that you don't believe in a hidden unprovable, unfalsifiable junk theory like "Patriarchy Theory."

Also, check out aimai at TAPPED who says, "Who cares what orwell thought about language?" http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=10&year=2007&base_name=harsh_but_accurate#comment-4565206

Anyway, you're not allowed to say good things about Matt until he repents.

Posted by: feh | Oct 18, 2007 12:27:37 AM

Ok, I'm sure this is a point of concern and heated debate for journalists, but, honestly, we readers couldn't care less (as long as our favorite journalists don't have to live inder the bridge). Imho it would be much more rewarding to dig into the influence of ownership of a media corporation on the actual reporting instead.
:-/

Posted by: Gray | Oct 18, 2007 3:34:06 AM

Remember Ezra that you and Jason can debate the definition of "merit pay" all y'all want, but what matters is the definition the legislature chooses to use. Heck, the legislature can choose to use terms in which the community being regulated can barely understand (e.g., ask a doctor if s/he fully knows what the hell anti-"partial birth abortion" legislation actually prohibits and what it doesn't).

So in the end, after the sausage-making is done, all that'll come of this kinda debate are John Kerry "I was for merit pay before I was against merit pay" moments. It is, ironically, especially important in such situations that one clarifies precisely what one means -- "I'm in favor of merit pay, defined as [X]". But to spend a bunch of time debating semantics, while it should be useful and constructive, won't be given how the sausage making process works -- especially considering how a certain political party takes advantage of (c.f. R. Putnam, I wonder if the GOP would have been able to attack Kerry so effectively if people didn't all bowl alone ... i.e. if more people actually had experience attending meatings of the Fraternal Order of Cute but Tough Varmints, they would understand what Kerry ment when he said "I was for it before I was against it" and they wouldn't have held that against him as a flip-flop) people's willful ignorance of sausage-making and dismissal of politics in general.

Posted by: DAS | Oct 18, 2007 9:49:25 AM

"the odd intersection between journalists and market forces"

Where exactly is that intersection I wonder.

As Matt points out, though I believe, nowhere near strongly enough, merit and market forces have little to do with what most people think of as journalism. It's like many other businesses but to relate it to something I know, it's much like the music business. back in the day the jobs were so sought after openings didn't make it into the local classifieds. Even when there was competition, it was between a short list of friends, family of people you knew already in the business. Both worlds are incestuous, small and insular.

What we've seen with the corporate consolidation of media is the consolidation of opinion and the filtering of news that actually makes it to the streets. "News" and published opinion these days, at least in the MSM is much more narrow than ever before and we owe that to the consolidation I spoke of earlier and the new cross-breeding of politicians, lobbyists and other operatives also acting as pundits and journalists.

No, aside from a small handful of exceptions there really is no intersection of journalism and market forces, at least as most people would have us believe.

Posted by: russell | Oct 18, 2007 10:48:47 AM

Does Jason really mean to suggest that underfunded non-profits don't carry around deadweight personnel?

Don't think this applies to Mr. Z, but the standard libertarian/neo-liberal/conservative line is that for-profit organizations are always more efficient. Now given that for-profit organizations need to eke out a profit when all's said and done, the only way they could be more efficient is by milking their workers for all the productivity they can (a libertarian/neo-liberal/conservative will ask you to compare how busy workers are in a corporation with what you see in your DMV).

So yes ... according to people with certain political agendas, non-profits of course have dead weight as they have no profit motive to trim it.

Not that I agree with that POV, FWIW (I've seen enough of the corporate world to know that there is no magic invisible hand making for-profits more efficient or productive) ... but I thought I would bring up the argument before someone or something else does. ;)

Posted by: DAS | Oct 18, 2007 11:20:37 AM

yes. Merit pay has to mean something more than a connection between "making your bosses happy" and getting more and better assignments.

Posted by: djw | Oct 18, 2007 5:22:41 PM

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