Status Anxiety | 3 January 2009

My New Year advice to aspiring journalists: become accountants instead

Like many people in the media, I’m bracing myself for an annus horribilis. I have multiple income streams — film, television, radio, books and journalism — and all have been decimated by the Credit Crunch. I’m not exaggerating when I say my earnings will fall by at least 50 per cent in 2009.

I got an inkling of just how bad things are when I was offered a column recently by a major Fleet Street newspaper. They wanted me to write 500 words a week on the OpEd page — prime real estate by any measure.

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‘Great,’ I said. ‘How much?’

‘A hundred and fifty a week.’

I almost dropped the phone. To give you an idea of how bad this is, it is less than I received for a piece of similar length for the same paper over 20 years ago.