Third in an unplanned series about journalists' salaries

Among the objections to a study by the National Association of Colleges and Employers I linked to Monday that said 2012 graduates of journalism programs had an average starting salary of $40,900:

• The average salary doesn't look at all like what journalists say they made/make/would like to make (I took a stab at explaining why that might be the case Tuesday).
• This survey of starting salaries of full-time employees doesn't include people who don't have starting salaries because they're not full-time employees.
• This survey of starting salaries of full time employees doesn't account for inflation.
• This survey of starting salaries of full-time employees doesn't deal with the problem of unemployment among journalism majors.

I salute any attempts to add context to a study that does only what it claims to do: Collect data on starting salaries of 2012 graduates who are employed full-time.

But there's one objection I can try to tackle: that NACE's data doesn't look much like the results of the most recent annual study of communications grads' salaries by the James M. Cox Jr. Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia. (more...)