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Massillon Independent on jjobs.com

Discussion in 'Journalism Jobs' started by BRoth, Mar 22, 2007.

  1. BRoth

    BRoth Member

    Company: The Independent
    Position: Sports
    Location:Massillon, Ohio
    Job Status: Full-time
    Salary: Negotiable
    Ad Expires: April 26, 2007
    Job ID: 754587

    Description:
    Seeking a strong, sports-minded reporter to strengthen an already award-winning Sports section for a six-day newspaper serving a circulation of 12,000 in Northeast Ohio, a hotbed of prep sports. Reporting experience at a daily newspaper is a requirement. Layout and design duties will also be a part of this job. This position will be one of three reporter/layout positions in our Sports department. Send e-mail queries or electronic resume and work samples, showing a range of both stories and layouts, to Publisher Kevin D. Coffey at Kevin.Coffey@indeonline.com or Editor Robert McCune at Robert.McCune@indeonline.com. Resume and work samples may be mailed to: Editor Robert McCune, The Independent, P.O. Box 730, Massillon, OH 44648.


    Anyone heard about the temp of the newsroom, other people there, etc ... ?
     
  2. cowherpower

    cowherpower New Member

    I worked at The Inde and The Rep within the last five years and I would not want to put myself in the position again of working inside that newsroom. There is a lot of selfish activity going on and the lack of personalities is amazing across the board with the Editor, Managing Editor and Sports Editor. It was just too many people worrying about their personal agendas for me to handle.
     
  3. Chad Conant

    Chad Conant Member

    Keep in mind their sports department is usually empty by, I think, 10 every night.
     
  4. cowherpower

    cowherpower New Member

    Chad,

    That is correct. They have a 10 p.m. deadline every night with the exception being midnight on Friday. You are also very limited in what you are able to write about as everything is assigned on a daily basis to what the powers to be want to see in the paper - at least it was that way for the last five years and might have changed in the last two months.
     
  5. In Cold Blood

    In Cold Blood Member

    any one know what's happening with this position? Has it been filled?
     
  6. chester

    chester Member

    Not yet. They're still looking for somebody last I heard.
     
  7. m2spts

    m2spts Member

    Sounds ..... ah ... ummmm ... interesting.
     
  8. GK14

    GK14 New Member

    Let me clear a couple things up.

    This position is my old one, so I can provide more input on it. I'm still with the paper and basically moved into "cowherpower's" old position.

    I won't get into "Cowher's" complaints, but I'll shed some of what I believe are positives about the job.

    1. Deadlines - The 10 p.m. deadlines aren't bad once you get used to them. Being a community-based paper, it has affected, but not crippled our prep coverage. For example, we got every basketball game we covered except one in this past season. The game we didn't was a sectional game that was supposed to tip at 8:30 p.m., but didn't actually begin until 9 p.m.

    2. Preps - Since the majority of sports writers begin their career by covering preps, there aren't many places better to build your resume than Stark County. The county generally sends at least 5 kids per year to BCS colleges in football (probably 10-15 D1 kids overall). It has also produced national top 100 basketball players the past 3 years (Raymar Morgan, Kosta Koufos, Kenny Frease). The baseball, for Northeast Ohio standards, is well above average. Track and field and cross country is strong. ... arguably NE Ohio's best all-time distance runner (Aaron Melhorn of Fairless) is in our coverage area. In wrestling, Perry (our second biggest coverage school) has not finished below third at the state wrestling meet in five years. The girls preps are just as good.

    3. Competition - We're a small paper, but you better believe that we compete against the big boys. Our biggest competition is actually our sister paper 8 miles down the road ... Canton Repository, a 60,000 circ. paper.

    On top of the Rep, we also have the Akron Beacon Journal, 100,000-plus circ., covering Stark County heavily. Akron is about 20 miles north of Massillon. The Cleveland Plain Dealer also covers the area, but to a lesser extent.

    There is a third daily in Stark County, The Alliance Review, but that paper doesn't generally compete with us. They stick to the eastern part of the county and we stick to the western part. We actually compete with the Wooster Daily Record, which is in the county west of us, more than the Review. The Daily Record, a 20,000 circ., covers two of the same schools that we cover.

    4. Pay - For a paper our size and in an area that has a low cost of living, the pay is better than most. The benefits are also very good. The paper was just bought by GateHouse, but since we're union and it was a stock sale, they have to adhere to our collective bargaining agreement. I've worked for Paxton and CNHI, and I'll take Copley/GateHouse over either any day of the week.

    5. Pro Football Hall of Fame - We don't cover the Browns, Indians, Cavaliers or Ohio State, so the HOF is IMO our tie to the pros/Ohio State. There is a HOF Luncheon Club (which I imagine whoever takes the position will have the responsibility of covering) that includes speakers like Romeo Crennel, Jim Tressel, Marvin Lewis, Thad Matta, etc. The paper also has a yearly HOF tab and does several stories on that year's HOFers.

    Is this paper the end all? No. But I think it's a great stepping stone for somebody.
     
  9. hpdrifter

    hpdrifter Member

    Anyone heard about the temp of the newsroom, other people there, etc ... ?
    [/quote]

    I would say it's about 68 degrees and the people probably around 98....
     
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