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How much does an editor earn? $56,000 a month

In the ultimate staffing nightmare, a daily newspaper has had the salary of every one of its 270 editorial staff leaked onto the Internet.

So if you’ve ever wondered what an editor actually earns, the answer is a basic annual salary of $670,000.  

The newspaper in question is The National, headquartered in Abu Dhabi, and edited by Martin Newland, the former editor of the Daily Telegraph in the UK and previously a member of the founding team on Conrad Black’s Canadian paper The Nattional Post. The paper’s founding team also included several Australian journalists.

Last night the salary list for the entire editorial team appeared on the wikileaks website – which provides a forum for information to be placed anonymously in the public domain. According to the site, it was placed there because “it shows the discrimination in pay at the government-owned, National newspaper in Abu Dhabi where there is heavy media censorship.”

The paper was launched last April.

The document says that Newland earns 132,834 UAE dirhams a month – although housing and other perks would be likely to come on top of that.

In one of many HR issues the document is likely to trigger, it reveals that the paper’s online editor earns less than her deputy.

And according to the document, even the lowest paid member of staff on the list earns a tax free salary that many Australian journalists would be jealous of – more than $58,000 a year.

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