(A non-political post coming up here having a lot to do with Philadelphia – by the way, posting will be sporadic for the rest of the week after today.)A family member communicated to me that the Philadelphia Inquirer practiced actual journalism in its “Magazine” section today (having to do with People/Lifestyle/This Week’s Beautiful Celebrity In Trouble stuff), and what is even more unbelievable is that the person responsible was Karen Heller, who, to my mind, is one of the worst features writers who has ever lived.
I am quite sure there will be a response to her column today, but she states that Bill Marrazzo, the CEO of WHYY, Philadelphia’s public radio and television station, earned $430,786 in salary and an additional $56,250 in benefits during fiscal year 2006 (as Heller observed, pulling in a “for-profit” kind of salary for a non-profit operation).
(Her column is actually a follow-up to the criticism by Arlen Specter of Matt A. Peskin, who makes $255,000 in salary and $42,000 in benefits as the head of the National Association of Town Watch based in Wynnewood, Pa. – Specter criticized Peskin because the former has channeled a lot of money to the latter, who makes more than Specter running a non-profit, to say nothing of populating the board of the organization with Peskin’s friends and family members).
Heller continues…
Marrazzo's obscene salary, and the lack of station-generated television programming, got him named No. 2 on the watchdog group Charity Navigator's 10 Highly Paid CEOs at Low-Rated Charities. (Full disclosure: My husband works at the public radio station WXPN. No one there earns anything close to this salary.)By the way, here is a link to Charity Navigator to learn more about the site, though, as Wikipedia notes here, Charity Navigator relies on information that the charitable organizations provide on IRS Form 990, which can be incomplete at times (sounds like a good reason to revisit Sarbanes-Oxley and tighten the rules for nonprofits as well as for-profit entities).
I think Philadelphia-area residents should be mindful of Marrazzo’s compensation versus the station’s programming when they happen to tune into Channel 12 and watch “That’s Entertainment Part 257” on Saturday nights from 8-10, preceded by Lawrence Welk reruns and followed by a “World at War” retrospective of the Allied ambush laid for them by the Germans prior to the Battle of the Bulge in 1945.
(No, I’m not trying to trivialize that history – I’m just saying that Ch. 12 should bother to broadcast interesting programming of some type during peak viewing hours on occasions besides those when they’re groveling for donations, to say nothing of trying to produce programming of their own.)
And speaking of mediocre CEOs receiving undue rewards, I strongly urge anyone reading this to never buy a Chrysler vehicle ever again, seeing as how Cerebrus, the company that bought Chrysler from Daimler, has hired former Home Depot CEO Bob Nardelli to call the shots; to me, that’s kind of like watching the job Mike Brown did while running FEMA and dealing with Katrina and then, after sacking him, deciding to put him in charge of the Army Corps of Engineers (a post on Nardelli’s “parachute” from Home Depot appears here).
(I know this comes in the wake of saying that you shouldn’t donate to the national Democratic Party organizations yesterday; my point is not to give money to anyone if you’re not sure what they’re going to do with it.)
And with Nardelli’s hiring at Chrysler, will it only be a matter of time before stories such as this one appear? (as always, God Bless The Onion).
Update 8/29: This letter appeared in response today in the Inquirer...
Karen Heller's commentary attacking WHYY ("Giving until it hurts," Aug. 8) reaches erroneous and unfortunate conclusions.What is "shallow" to me is WHYY asking for money while they give Marrazzo a raise that is uncomfortably close to my base salary for an entire year!
Like all media outlets, WHYY is in a battle for survival. Unlike others, its future is predicated on the powerful mission of serving our community. WHYY offers excellence in news, local arts and children's programming.
While maintaining consecutive years of outstanding fiscal performance, WHYY invested significantly but prudently in creating a presence on each of today's media platforms - On Demand, FiOS, satellite, and any number of Internet services, such as MySpace. At the same time, in addition to broadcasting TV12 and 91FM, WHYY has launched 24/7 over-the-air services, including a new radio channel built upon classical music and enhanced news and information, as well as three new digital TV services.
During this period, 91 FM has experienced a 68 percent growth in its market share and WHYY has recorded unprecedented increases in member and donor revenues.
In light of these accomplishments, Heller's disparagement of CEO Bill Marrazzo seems shallow. WHYY's board stands behind its decision to retain and compensate an executive whose background, experience and values align so well with WHYY's business strategy and powerful brand.
Molly Dickinson Shepard
Chairman
Gerard H. Sweeney
Vice chairman
Board of Directors, WHYY
Philadelphia
Update 9/19: Commenter Anon reminded me that I meant to include this in my original post...it continually amazes me that people like Marrazzo think they can pull this stuff without anyone pushing back.
5 comments:
So, this sounds like the rich are in control of non-profit Boards of Directors in our region. These people seem to be out of touch with the rest of us, who ride the bus and need a little help to get to the next payday.
I like public TV and radio and think that I am smarter for it. Smart enough to know that this is plain wrong to heap pay on one man this way. If there are dozens of line workers willing to work at WHYY, aren't there dozens of other leaders willing to work there who will do a better job than Mr. Marrazzo at a lower salary?
Who puts these people on those non-profit boards? Does the public have any say in the matter? Will ordinary people be hurt if the giving to these non-profits dry up?
Thanks for sharing.
You're welcome - thanks for checking in (and I guarantee you that this would not be happening if Rick Breitenfeld were still in charge...I hasten to add also that I don't know if Marrazzo's situation is common among nonprofits or the excpetion - I have a feeling it's the latter).
Your comment jogged my memory a bit on something I meant to add, and I'll take care of that in a minute.
I saw your blog after seeing the Oct 2007 issue of Philadelphia magazine which had an article about this CEO Marrazzo and was looking for more about WHYY. The Oct issue isn't on the web as I write this.
So, it's probably not Marrazzo but the Board of Directors that he's installed walking down the garden path and leading WHYY to eventual ruin by making it so tied to the rich and influential citizens instead of the ordinary people, the public that that pubic radio and tv is suppoed to serve.
The elite can be so self-serving and dismissive of the rest of us that it leads to this kind of "salary" barrier. Do they feel safer, distanced from us by their bank accounts (or rather wealth management accounts). I'm hearing more support messages from "wealth management" firms at WHYY lately. How many people can benefit from that kind of service. Not me.
I just saw an Oct 2007 Philadelphia Magazine article that makes reference to Karen Heller's article about The WHYY CEO's outrageous salary.
Phillymag article.It is titled, "Dead Air" by Steve Volk, didn't he used to write for Philadelphia Weekly? Why are these high paid CEO's in the news lately? I wonder if the public is finally going to take action with all these stories about WHYY and Bill Marrazzo.
http://www.wheremostneeded.org/2007/10/philadelphians-.html
Blog on Charities mostly concerned with observing practices of non-profit boards. Looks like it's picked up on the story Karen Heller wrote about National Night Out and WHYY. It's time to bring this to people. Non-profits and their bad practices.
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