I joined the Chicago Tribune as a copy reader sometime during the week of June 4, 1972. I’m not trying to be vague about the actual start date, I just don’t remember. However, I do have my “hire letter” from Harold E. Hutchings, executive editor:
“This confirms that, as stated in our telephone conversation today, we will start you at $230 per week and that you will be ready for work on June 4, 1972. Since this is a Sunday, it well may be that you will not be scheduled in until June 5. We can settle that matter when you reach the city.”
A weekly salary of $230 is about $12,000 a year in 1972 dollars; in 2021 dollars, that’s about $75,000. Pretty nice for my almost first job. It actually was my second job as I was working at the SF Examiner at the time. I had two years of experience. That’s not a lot, I realized.
Sidebar: Give the time difference between Chicago and that I was working the morning shift at the SF Examiner, Hutchings had to send an airmail, special delivery letter asking me to give him a call. I got the letter and called him the same day. And the rest is, as they say, history.