Executive Producers in their mid to late 20s are not at all unusual in newsrooms. Nor are News Directors in their 30s. Only anchors and a few reporters are paid enough to stick around into their wealth-building years. I think about a reporter I knew, this was in the late 80s, who had wanted to be a tv reporter all her life. At 25, she had a choice between accepting a second tv contract and a raise to $15,000 or accepting an offer to do pharmaceutical sales for $60,000. Goodbye tv.