One of New York City’s three dailies had called offering an assignment - and I turned it down.  What was wrong with the proposed assignment?  In a word, everything.
   The New York Post wanted me to interview the back-home-here-again wife of a top New York politician in a headline scandal and write the story - for $200.  The offered payment alone was a dealbreaker; I explained to the editor or whoever had called that my day rate for NYC dailies was $500 - and I’d already had such gigs and payment from their competitor, the Daily News.
   The story practically would have written itself; anyone familiar with the 5 Ws and 1 H could easily do it.  Surely some J-school student in Charlotte - far closer to the wife - could have been found; the opportunity for a tearsheet from the front page of an NYC daily alone would have been a big opportunity.  So did they want me - or was everyone nearer the wife’s home refusing?
   One problem - their adamant insistence on $200 as payment - alone ended it.  Going nearly to Charlotte and back would have made the gig very minimally profitable.  
   But the real problem is that day rate would have meant I’d never get more from that paper - and quite possibly have my day rate with the Daily News “renegotiated” soon after.  I explained to the person at the New York Post that one of my photos - sold through an agency - already had run front page on a top story in their paper - and that the Daily News was paying my day rate - and, with that, the call ended.
   Later, I did a photo assignment for the New York Post - a top story - at a reasonable day rate: the just-fired executive editor of the New York Times was commencement speaker at Wake Forest (below).

Shot on assignment for the New York Post:
Just fired as executive editor of the New York Times,
Jill Abramson gives 2014 commencement speech at Wake Forest.