Dubner was simply wrong (which is par for the course if you've ever tried following Freakonomics and realized that it was just poorly researched pop sociology t

Dubner was simply wrong (which is par for the course if you've ever tried following Freakonomics and realized that it was just poorly researched pop sociology that sounds good in a podcast but doesn't hold up to any sort of scrutiny). For starters, there is no such thing as the "Newspaper Guild;" the News Guild represents staffers at the NYT and a number of other newspapers. While it does set minimum wages based on seniority, it does not mandate lockstep wages or anything else like that; guild members are free to negotiate higher packages than the minimum, and many (like Maureen Dowd) did.