Romenesko's pay, Mediacrity and The New York Times

I am late to this (which is to say, it's already been touched on by Sullivan, Reynolds and the Times, all of whom have a bit more readership than I).

Mediacrity unearthed from tax filings that Jim Romenesko was making more than $150,000 a year from his blog. Mediacrity speculated (correctly) that I probably make less than that from this blog. In the interest of accuracy, Mediacrity e-mailed me to check that fact. Since I was overseas and technologically challenged, I was unable to reply via e-mail, so I instead commented directly on the Mediacrity blog post.

The New York Times then picked up the story (but unfortunately neglected to link to--or properly credit--Mediacrity) in a piece entitled, "For One Blogger, Fun and Profit":

Who said you can't make money giving away news and opinions on the Internet? Apparently not Jim Romenesko, who runs a popular site devoted to comings and goings in the news media. According to tax records filed by his employer, the Poynter Institute, Mr. Romenesko received $169,187 in salary and other compensation in 2003, making him Poynter's highest-paid nonexecutive.

The income picture for other bloggers and Web columnists is less rosy. Some blog for the fun of it - that is, free. Others generate income through advertising, while others cut deals for, say, free rent. True to form, bloggers have plenty of opinions about Mr. Romenesko's pay. On Mediacrity (which promises "occasional rants on goofs, bias and hypocrisy in the media"), some bloggers congratulated Mr. Romenesko, while others bemoaned how little they made.

The last line in the Times piece is apparently a reference to my comments on the Mediacrity post. However I was not bemoaning anything. As I pointed out in my comments, I make close to zero from blogging, but I also have a day job. Romenesko on the other hand does this professionally. And he has a far, far larger readership than I. I do not begrudge him a penny.