By Tracy Dingmann

No one ever leaves newspaper journalism for a lower-paying job. That would be,  by definition, almost impossible.

Newspaper reporters just don’t make much. Especially ones at the Albuquerque Journal.

That’s what makes it so understandable when reporters bolt longtime newspaper careers for higher-paying government or public relations jobs. The big salary reveal usually happens at the going-away party, when the rest of the poor slobs left behind at the paper find out their former colleague will now make twice what they do.

Honestly – I cannot tell you how many times I attended goodbye parties at the Journal and witnessed that exact scenario.

So I thought about what the scene must have been like among the rank and file the other day after I read in the Journal that Albuquerque mayor-elect Richard Berry named Journal police reporter T.J. Wilham to be the communications director for incoming city Public Safety Director Darren White, at a yearly salary of $75,000. (Actually I didn’t have to wonder what reporters thought…I heard. Not pretty! Editors, on the other hand, kept their own counsel. )

Wilham’s position is a new one, created by the self-described fiscally-conservative mayor-elect.

By hiring Wilham – along with television reporter Chris Ramirez, who will be a general city spokesman – Berry is taking a page out of the playbook of Gov. Bill Richardson, a politician who has famously hired dozens of ex-journos to fill state media relation positions.

When you think about it, it’s a pretty smart strategy for a politician to take.

I mean, everyone gets something.

The long-suffering, hard-working, college-educated journalist finally gets paid a salary he or she can raise a family on.

And the politician? Well, based on the skill sets of most journalists I know, he or she most likely gets a well-spoken, personable guy or gal who can write well and is a quick study – in short, someone who’s perfectly suited for spokesperson jobs.

And then there’s also the fact that these ex-media folks usually come with – in most cases – fairly decent relationships with the people they used to work with in the media. I think every politician who hires a journalist has to hope that some of that past association could count for some measure of good will when their press release goes out and their story is pitched.

Like I said, it’s a smart strategy.

So it’s in that strictly observational spirit that I want to say that it’ll be interesting to see how the pathway of information flows between the Berry/White administration and the Albuquerque Journal.

Will Journal reporters catch everything Wilham pitches on behalf of his new boss? Will the editors – including those folks who write the editorials?   Soon we’ll see.