Are New York's editors okay?
Once at the beating heart of the publishing industry (with the best salaries in the biz), times are a-changin’ for the city's editors and writers.
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Each time a new generation watches Sex and the City for the first time, the discourse cycle resets: could you really afford a glamorous lifestyle writing one column a week in the 90s? Was $4.50 a word a normal rate for Vogue?
No, almost certainly not, but the reality is New York's media scene was once far more lucrative. Sure, most of us were never going to be Truman Capote in the 60s, getting $25,000 (about $250,000 in 2025) to write an essay for Esquire, or Graydon Carter making half a million for three stories a year. However, even contrasting the salaries, commission rates and job opportunities of a couple of years ago with today feels like comparing two different eras. According to the handful of New York-based editors and writers we spoke with, the situation is pretty dire.
Navigating the editorial industry today means praying that the around 2,681 American journalism jobs lost per year (as of 2023) won’t include your role. And that’s only if you’ve landed a role that can sustain you financially. In 2023, New York State made posting salaries mandatory, meaning that media companies have to openly admit that their contract roles can pay as little as $17 an hour (while others evade these new laws by putting a vague salary range).
At indie publications, talented staffers are being forced to leave because of unliveable wages. “Once you have clips and connections, you have to sit, evaluate your bank account and see how long you can do it,” said Maya Kotomori, previously the assistant editor at Document Journal. “I realised I was two months away from needing to move out of the city and borrow money from my parents.”