From The Motley Fool's Alyce Lomax piece "Bad News in CEO Pay":

Many newspaper companies' CEOs actually got raises in 2007, even though a dozen newspaper companies he surveyed saw their share prices decrease by an average of 35.7%. (Granted, CEO pay in the group did decrease by 11.7% on average, but you wouldn't know it from some of the figures.) Check out some examples:

    * News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) Rupert Murdoch got a whopping total payout of $32.1 million in 2007. That was a 24% increase over the prior year, even though News Corp.'s shares lost about 8%.
    * Here's a piece of news that might be more at home in a scandal sheet: Journal Register's former CEO Robert Jelenic enjoyed a 333.2% pay increase to $6.3 million, even though the company's shares shed three-fourths of their value. (He's gone now, so his pay included severance; Journal Register now trades on the Pink Sheets. Ouch.)

Situations like these tend to deflate the customary arguments that CEOs should make mad money. Some people argue that exorbitant pay for CEOs reflects the high degree of risk these individuals assume. I'm sorry -- risk?

We've all seen CEOs do an indisputably lousy job, then walk away filthy rich. They often get high-profile gigs elsewhere, too -- look at Home Depot's (NYSE: HD) former CEO, Bob Nardelli, who went on to Chrysler. And what about Merrill Lynch's (NYSE: MER) former CEO, Stan O'Neal? He almost immediately joined Alcoa's (NYSE: AA) board of directors after leaving Merrill. Sure, everybody makes mistakes, but given their rich rewards for underperformance, we can't exactly call these folks' positions "risky." And there seems to be little (if any) shame in accepting tons of money for public failure.

On the bright side, Mutter pointed out a couple of newspaper companies on the other side of the spectrum, where stock performance and CEO pay more closely matched reality last year:

    * Washington Post's (NYSE: WPO) Donald Graham's compensation fell 52.4% to just $411,700; the company's shares fell 17.9%.
    * Scripps' (NYSE: SSP) CEO Kenneth Lowe's pay also dropped even more precipitously than his company's stock price. He took a 20.3% pay cut to $7.9 million, while Scripps shares fell 9.9%.

Mutter called Washington Post and Scripps "two of the most diversified and progressive companies in the publishing industry," and pointed out that their compensation policies are obviously set up to penalize the company leaders for not attaining tough goals. These CEOs took a hit to their wallets even though their companies' shares actually did better than many others in the industry.

Call me crazy, but that sounds like a common-sense policy for all corporations to me. "Our company's not as much of a loser as our peers, and that makes us a winner -- so pay up!" doesn't strike me as a path to greatness.