This is the annual weekend in which Minnesota’s CEOs dislike the Minnesota Star Tribune because we let readers see their compensation over the last year.
Current and former CEOs have recently asked me why the Star Tribune continues this ritual feature.
I’ve replied with the high-minded answer, which is that it’s a longtime exercise in accountability for investors, employees and broader society. These days, fewer news organizations have the resources to analyze the disclosures that publicly traded companies file with regulators each spring.
Nonprofits also disclose executive salaries in public tax filings with the IRS. Last year, a trio of business professors on the East Coast studied compensation of leaders of nonprofit organizations and found pay rose when local newspapers closed and other forms of external monitoring did not exist.
In the for-profit world, you’ll still see lists like this in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, which reported last month the nation’s highest-paid executive was the leader of Axon Enterprise, maker of Taser stun guns. There are numerous investor-research companies that, for a fee, provide far more comprehensive data about executive pay.
The other reason we publish the CEO compensation chart is because our readership data shows thousands and thousands of you read it. Both answers are true: it is accountability journalism that also attracts strong reader interest. And those two things aren’t mutually exclusive.
The Star Tribune’s content rarely overlaps with, say, Vanity Fair magazine or the old TV show “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.” One is our weekly Home Gazing feature looking at homes for sale in Minnesota that are often expensive.
In his new book “The Haves and the Have Yachts,” Evan Osnos of the New Yorker magazine says the way we’re drawn to people with money is instinctual.