Insider editor-in-chief Nicholas Carlson featured a project of his publication on Twitter that aims to demystify people's salaries "to create even more transparency for job seekers at a time when taboos around pay are quickly breaking down." But Carlson is apparently not practicing what he preaches, much to the chagrin of Jezebel's progressives. It writes that Carlson:
...implored his 30,000-plus followers to share their own salary histories. In what could not be a more natural response, many people asked Carlson what he makes. Carlson called out one of these inquiries as a “fun question” (is this fun? what the f--- is going on?), and then did absolutely nothing to demystify his own salary.
He went on to say that he’d “rather not say publicly for lots of practical reasons” and admitted that it “feels a little wimpy, but also prudent” to not be transparent. This man really just revealed on main that he does not give a single s--- about the very project he’s touting. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he added that if he were to share his salary, he’d do so via “some third party I could trust to keep it anonymous and average it with other people in roles like mine.” Let me paraphrase that: “I’ll only share my salary if I can obfuscate it into oblivion.”
...There are myriad reasons as to why salary transparency is important, particularly in media—an industry where inequity is vast and wages are widely known to suck. Transparency helps eliminate unequal pay among workers, namely those who are women and/or POC, because it lets everyone know what the person next to them is making. Transparency also helps employees find level ground when they’re unionizing, giving them an idea of what the salary floor and ceiling should look like in their company. (This spreadsheet, rife with salaries of reporters, editors, and more, is beyond illuminating.) Insider acknowledged this, in part, in its description of the salary demystification project, claiming that its goal is to “create even more transparency for job seekers at a time when taboos around pay are quickly breaking down.” It even shared a Glassdoor stat that emphasizes that 70 percent of employees believe “salary transparency is good for employee satisfaction.”
