Again, we'd like to stress that Journalism UK is not a professional body or an industry organisation. That means we have no official or unofficial ties to the media, except for the employer that one of us works for. It also means that we simply have no information to send those of you who ask for it. Seriously, rates do vary enormously. Even people writing for the same magazine are paid different rates, which in our opinion is the way it should be.
Some writers are simply more valuable and more experienced than others.
The most experienced newspaper columnists apparently receive something like one pound per word, but most journalists work for a small fraction of that amount. On small publications, writers may not even be paid at all. They may be employed in other professions and write articles simply for the prestige of doing so. National newspapers generally pay the most, and it's naturally very difficult to get your work published in them. If you want to know roughly what magazines and newspapers pay their writers, check out the National Union of Journalists' Freelance Fees Guide.