'I found out I was the lowest paid at the table': Morning Joe's Mika Brzezinski reveals she almost quit over gender pay gap



Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski has revealed she almost quit the show after just a year because she was earning far less than her male colleagues.

The 44-year-old said she discovered she took home 14 times less than co-host Joe Scarborough - so little she struggled to make ends meet.

Ms Brzezinski makes the revelations in her new book, 'Knowing Your Value', in which she discusses how women can negotiate the salary they're worth.

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Unfair pay: Mika Brzezinski has revealed she almost quit MSNBC's Morning Joe because she earned far less than her male colleagues

The revelations come as her former CBS colleague, Katie Couric, is rumoured to be negotiating a $20million deal to move to ABC - despite complaining about sexism holding back her pay in the past.



In an interview about her book on Morning Joe, Ms Brzezinski revealed she planned to resign in 2008, after only 12 months on the show.

She said: 'I had found out I was the lowest paid at the table and sometimes by far.

'I didn't think I should be making more than any of you guys, but I thought I should have been a lot closer.



Pay gap: Mika Brzezinski has revealed she used to earn 14 times less than her co-host, Joe Scarborough. It took her five attempts to negotiate a pay-rise

'Joe's the creator of the show, and so there's some obvious differences that can be built in, but these were vast.'

Ms Brzezinski joined MSNBC as a freelance reporter in 2007, after she was fired from CBS in a 'pretty ugly' dismissal.

She said she came 'crawling back into the business' and took a huge pay cut - but then her money failed to go up when she became Morning Joe co-host a few months later.

She said: 'I realised instead of blaming it on MSNBC, it was me, that I didn't understand my value, and this was a common problem I'd had throughout my career... feeling like I was at the bottom of the barrel inside because of the deal I had cut for myself.'

Negotiation: Ms Brzezinski said she continually undervalued herself. Former colleague Katie Couric, right, is rumoured to be negotiating a $20m deal with ABC



In fact Ms Brzezinski discovered she was earning 14 times less than her co-host, Mr Scarborough.

TOP-PAID NEWS ANCHORS

Matt Lauer (Today) $17million

Katie Couric (CBS) $15million Brian Williams (NBC) $12.5 million Diane Sawyer (ABC) $12million Meredith Vieira (Today) $11million Bill O'Reilly (Fox News) $10million George Stephanopoulos (ABC) $8million Keith Olbermann (MSNBC) $7million Shepard Smith (Fox News) $7million Wolf Blitzer (CNN) $3 million Source: TV Choice (2010)



She said: 'While he was coming from prime time, and he was worth a lot more, he's also the creator of the show, I was certainly not worth 14 less than him.'



In the book, she writes: 'Despite my professional experience, the fifteen-hour workdays, and a successful new show that I had helped build, MSNBC was still refusing to pay me what I was worth.



'Not only was my salary lower than my colleagues’, each month was a financial scramble to make ends meet.

'After child care, on-air wardrobe, makeup, travel, and the other ridiculous expenses that women in this business end up taking on, the job was actually costing me more than I was being paid.'

When present Willie Geist asked her why she didn't walk away, she replied simply: 'We fixed it.'



It took Ms Brzezinski several tries to negotiate a better deal with her boss, Phil Griffin.

Pay struggle: Mika Brzezinski highlights how women find it hard to negotiate higher salaries in her new book

In an interview earlier this year, she told Marie Claire: 'My salary situation at Morning Joe wasn't right.

'I made five attempts to fix it, then realized I'd made the same mistake every time: I apologised for asking.'

Just three out of the top ten best-paid news anchors in America are women.

Speaking to panellists Nora Ephron and Norah O'Donnell - who she interviewed for her book - Ms Brzezinski said women find it difficult to negotiate a higher pay deal because they get 'embarrassed'.

It's not something her former colleague, Katie Couric, seems to have struggled with.



In 2008, she complained that sexism was holding back her salary as a CBS anchor, despite earning $15million a year.

Ms Couric confirmed she was leaving the channel last month, and is rumoured to be negotiating a $20million deal with ABC.

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