Who guards the guards themselves?

Readers of The Guardian will have been choking into their cornflakes yesterday, as the paper reported its annual survey into executive pay – 500 directors of FTSE 100 companies took home £650m last year ‘as boardroom rewards continued to rocket,’ the paper said.

But what’s this? The Times says today that board pay at the Guardian Media Group ‘rose 37% to £3.3m last year despite a loss of £48.3m at The Guardian and The Observer.’

Deals included a £373,000 pay packet for Alan Rusbrdiger, editor of The Guardian, and a 13% increase for Carolyn McCall, the chief executive of The Guardian and The Observer.

The Guardian itself said the majority of the increase was taken up by one payment, to Auto Trader boss Graham Luff, who earned a special £556,000 bonus for staying with the business after the media group acquired the title.

Presumably it will be extending such generosity of understanding to other companies now when it comes to reporting their pay hikes.