This is too good to pass up: Jim Romonesko, the media blogger who rightly gave the Billings Gazette grief for getting all squeamish about posting the affidvait in the Jason Priest assault case, is now relaying more news about Lee Enterprises bonuses.
It seems that the head carpenter at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, like the Gazette a Lee-owned newspaper, recently quit in disgust because of the $700,000 bonus award to CEO Mary Junck.
First of all, what? A head carpenter? Wow, that’s a big newspaper. Anyway, the story was originally reported by a columnist for the Post-Dispatch. If you’re wondering how he got away with that, well, it is a big newspaper and I believe it’s the only union paper left in the Lee chain.
Here’s the best part of Bill McClellan’s column:
“Mary Junck, the CEO of Lee Enterprises, the company that owns this newspaper, received total compensation of $1,575,346 last year. That was down from the $2,093,267 she made in 2012.
“She is the big boss who just got the $700,000 bonus. She received it for refinancing the company’s debt. Essentially, we’re going to pay a slightly higher interest rate in return for extending the due date.
“The bonus was the idea of the board of directors’ compensation committee. I do not mean to be critical of the committee’s generosity, but I could introduce them to plenty of folks who refinance loans at various Payday Loan operations in the poor neighborhoods of St. Louis. Same deal. Higher interest rate, extended due date. Nobody gives these people a bonus.”
These days, it’s probably more honorable to be running a payday loan shop.
