A salary survey jumps the snark that feeds it

Dusting off an issue of Toronto Life from 15 years ago provides a reminder of just how dreary the future once felt in this town. Back when Baby Boomers were still a fair distance away from having disposable retirement income, the magazine paled in comparison to the alt-weeklies gaining mainstream traction, sorely lacked the stylish irreverence of Spy, and wouldn’t have tried to simulate the tawdry tattle-tales smeared inside Frank. Those elements were appropriated in time for the 2000s, though, when its aging readership became aligned with what luxury advertisers had to sell. Now, the threat surrounds the eventual extinction of the general interest monthly, especially when the experience of Toronto is taking on more diverse dimensions than ever. The reaction from Toronto Life consists of cover stories aimed at sixtysomethings curious about the enigmatic living, mating and earning conditions of their GenX offspring – with recent features on The Condo Generation, Single in the City, and now the return of the old standby Who Earns What. But the front page text is deliberately misleading – the words Million Dollar Baby, splashed across the smug image of Ben Mulroney, is accompanied by small print clarifying that he may only gross $400K a year. Also, the rundown of salaries previously laid out in small paragraphs – often accompanied by caustic confirmations or caveats – is reduced to a pedestrian four-page list, along with an introduction that explains how only three of the 400 people asked about their paycheque were willing to give fact-checkers something to work with. Yet, the results are still unsettlingly earnest. None of the salaries gleaned from public records or media reports come as a revelation, anyhow – although the guesstimates slapped on local yokels in the media and culture industries are a bit more intriguing: George Stroumboulopoulos is pegged at $150K, Steven J. “Ed the Sock” Kerzner gets listed at $120K, and a writer of three episodes of Degrassi: The Next Generation was compensated with $49K. On the wordsmith front, Ann-Marie MacDonald’s $310K is juxtaposed with Camilla Gibb’s $42K, compared to $16,322 for Darren O’Donnell. Musically speaking, Prince’s $56 million dwarfs Gord Downie’s $200K take, and $90K for Broken Social Scene pin-up Kevin Drew. But really, what the typical Toronto Life reader would hope their baby grows up to be is a CRTC-protected media mogul, what with Alliance Atlantis executive chairman Michael MacMillan earning $9,238,510, Corus Entertainment honcho John Cassaday scoring $4,292,514, and CHUM Ltd. boss Jay Switzer raking in $2,211,140. So, why is Toronto Life editor John Macfarlane coyly confessing that his $170K estimate wasn’t confirmed, when he gloated about transparency in the past? Maybe it’s a fear that a magazine that caters to a shrinking segment of the local marketplace will find its own fortunes following suit soon.