NPR SALARIES: Michael Petrelis thinks that these are enormous. They don’t seem out of line to me, given that NPR is a huge national radio network with a very large audience. If NPR were pretending to be some sort of solidarity-with-the-working-class operation, I guess you could argue that six-figure salaries were hypocritical, but this would seem to put them comfortably within the Volvo-and-McMansion set that comprises the bulk of their audience, or at least the bulk of their donor base. And they certainly produce quality work, political slant aside.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

Lol that’s a heck of an angle Glenn. I can’t help to wonder if they didn’t have you on if you’d be so accommodating? I think a significant bulk of their support is from forced tax extracted out of the non-Volvo-and-McMansion set, like me. Don’t get me wrong here, political slant aside, of course.

Well, to the extent that they’re government supported there’s a point there, I guess. But I actually think that NPR’s money mostly comes from non-governmental sources. And it doesn’t seem like they have me on all that often, do they?

Anyway, others see it differently:

My concept of pay scales has been permanently damaged by years in Hollywood, but I think these salaries are low. In private radio, local morning jocks can get paid this much, and the NPR people are national.

That’s how it seems to me, and when some of my students stand to make upwards of $160K in their first jobs — more than I get paid — these NPR salaries don’t sound all that outrageous.