The New York Observer Releases List of Highest Paid TV News Figures

Crotch-sniffing idiocy pays.

Who knew?

Fox News anchor Sean Hannity is atop the New York Observer’s annual “rich list” of the highest-paid figures in TV news.

Hannity, a conservative commentator and Donald Trump backer, makes a $29 million annual salary when combining his afternoon syndicated radio program and primetime opinion show on Fox News. Hannity, 55, has been with the network since its inception in 1996.

If you want to get paid in the media business, you must be willing to suspend anything resembling integrity, apparently.

Intelligence optional.

Following behind Donald Trump’s most devoted gimp is NBC’s Matt Lauer, who rakes in an annual $22 million.

Fox’s Bill O’Reilly closed out the top three with $18 million for the year. I assume that is with the combined income of his 15 “Killing…” one-thing-or-another books.

Rounding out the top 10 in order were ABC’s Robin Roberts, Fox’s Megyn Kelly, CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Fox’s Shepard Smith, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and ABC “World News Tonight” anchor David Muir.

As a point of interest, Megyn Kelley is currently renegotiating her contract and is looking to go from $15 million to $20 million per year. She may get it, which would put her in the top three, instead of O’Reilly (who has groused that her book is damaging the reputation of the network).

Just to put things in perspective, the average salary of a registered nurse is somewhere between $45,000 to $60,000 a year.

The median salary for a police officer is around $40,000 per year.

High school teachers may get from $35,000 to $50,000 annually.

For that matter, the President of the United States only gets a salary of $400,000 a year.

So how are talking heads, who are, quite often wrong, worth so much?

Celebrity sells.

Unbelievable.

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