Sports editor, Beaumont (Texas) Enterprise

from jj.com ... thoughts?

Company: Beaumont Enterprise
Position:
SPORTS EDITOR
Location:
Beaumont, Texas
Job Status: Full-time
Salary: Not Specified
Ad Expires:
July 17, 2008
Job ID: 936777

Description:
The Beaumont Enterprise seeks a sports editor who will oversee five reporters and serve as a clearinghouse for all assignments, identifying opportunities for daily stories and long term enterprise. Also responsible for contributing ideas and content to the website, including updating the local sports database and providing video to the site.

The ideal candidate will have good communication, organization and leadership skills; multimedia experience and mindset; the ability to multi-task and stay organized in fast-paced environment; a collaborative management style with the ability to effectively manage reporters of diverse skills and personalities; and local news sensibilities, including an ability to size up readers’ needs and a desire to get to know the communities and their people.

The Beaumont Enterprise, a 55,000 circulation daily, is part of the Hearst Corporation. It is located in Southeast Texas, which offers some of the lowest cost of living in the country (and there’s no state income tax), plus diverse shopping, restaurants and entertainment. Beaumont, unlike the rest of the country, is in the middle of an economic boom, with $15 billion in expansion underway in area businesses. Nestled in the piney East Texas woods, Beaumont is at the epicenter of a water-lover’s paradise, with lakes, rivers, bays and the Gulf of Mexico nearby. The city is a short drive from Houston and Galveston.

There's lots of room for advancement, both within our newsroom and with Hearst.

Send cover letter, resume, references and samples of work to Kris Worrell, Managing Editor, Beaumont Enterprise, P.O. Box 3071, Beaumont, TX 77704 or kworrell@hearstnp.com.

 

either it didn't take for someone, or it never got filled:

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/52573/

 

This is where I started my journalism career as an intern in Editorial Sports back in November 1983. A lot has happened in my life since then ... being in, out, in and out of this business.

Admittedly, there's something that -- for me, OK -- would be a welcome challenge. Growing up there wasn't all that joyful, yet it wasn't the newspaper gig's fault at all. I learned a hell of a lot about journalism from some people who worked there and moved on to greater things in their careers. It would be a wonderful opportunity to go back, take my life and work experience and see what happens.

I never thought I'd write the words "wonderful" and "Beaumont" in the same post. For me, it would be like going full circle ... yet having a lot more life skills to deal with issues.

OK, I don't want to get too heavy on here. I love SportsJournalists.com. Period.

 

Seriously, Peters didn't leave that long ago.

 

Beaumont is part of the Golden Triangle, which is a strange, but livable, place. I know the area well, though maybe not quite as much about their paper.

Beaumont is an oil town so when they say they are thriving right now, I don't doubt it. The Golden Triangle consists of Beaumont (115k) people, Port Arthur (around 50k people) and Orange (about 20k people) which form a little triangle on the map in the southeastern corner of the state on the Louisiana line. They are all about 15-20 minutes apart. The metro population is 385k. Beaumont and Port Arthur both suffer from inner-city decay which explains why so much of the population lives outside of the three "cities" that make up the Golden Triangle.

The main industry is oil. A refinery in Port Arthur owned by Shell is going through an expansion that will make it the largest refinery in the United States.

In the 1990s a lot of people moved into an area they call "Mid-County," the towns of Nederland, Port Neches and Groves, between Beaumont and Port Arthur. These days, the population is shifting north of Beaumont into a town called Lumberton. There has always been a fair number of people just east of Beaumont in the seriously redneck town of Vidor, which gained infamy in the 1990s for not wanting its public housing desegregated. It remains 99 percent white and blacks in the area fear going there...to this day. In Jasper, about 45 minutes north, there was the brutal murder of a black man named James Byrd, Jr., who was dragged behind a pickup truck for three miles.

I've yet to find a really "nice" part of Beaumont, although there does appear to be some nice new shopping areas and some new neighborhoods going up on the north part of town near the Parkdale Mall. The area was also hit hard by Hurricane Rita in 2005. Port Arthur really got walloped.

So needless to say, it's got its problems.

But it's also a big enough community to have things to do. It's an hour from Houston, four from New Orleans. There's a good-sized mall, a Barnes and Noble and all the chains you'd expect from a city its size.

It's a Hearst in a state where Hearst also owns the Chronicle and I believe the San Antonio Express-News, if I'm not mistaken. I understand Beaumont has served as a "farm club" for those bigger papers, so there's a lot to be said for that. The guy you'd be replacing I believe left to do preps at the Chronicle. How does the paper look? I'd imagine it fits the Heart corporate model well. The section is smaller than it used to be and there's an emphasis on features from what I've seen. I do know they've put some emphasis on their Website lately.

In terms of competition, Port Arthur and Orange both have CHNI papers. I've always thought that Beaumont could really go after those papers and gain on their circulation. The Port Arthur News, in particular, seems to have a niche.

There's a Division I school, Lamar, that is starting football. They just hired a coach and will start playing in 2010, I think (maybe 09). Two guys do most of the Lamar coverage for them: Perryn Keys, a pretty good young reporter, and Rush Wood, Lamar's former SID who is a long-time figure in the area sports scene. The Port Arthur paper competes with a regular Lamar beat as well.

High school football in southeast Texas is a big deal as it is all over the state. Beaumont West Brook and Port Arthur Memorial High are in a 5A district that includes teams from the East Houston suburbs. There is a large, highly competitive 4A district that's contained in the coverage area plus a bunch of rural schools at the 3A-1A levels. One of the 4A schools, Ozen, produced Kendrick Perkins of the Boston Celtics and is always a state power. Memorial has also had its moments in basketball. There's also a private school league power called Monsignor Kelly.

The lowdown on their prep area is interest has declined from a series of mergers. Beaumont went from having several schools in the 1970s that had huge followings to having two high schools — West Brook and Central. Eventually they re-opened Ozen, one of the schools that had been closed. In the process of all that merging, a lot of old rivalries were lost and the interest isn't what it used to be. Similarly, Port Arthur used to have three schools — Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson and Stephen F. Austin — but they consolidated all of them to Memorial.

Any other questions, just ask.

 

I hear 3-4 folks were interviewed and they all fell through, either from the applicants side or from the paper's side. So now, they are re-posting. Sounds like a low-ball deal, but still, it's an SE at a 55k circulation.

 

Is Tim Kelly still the editor of that paper? Tim worked in sports in Fort Lauderdale back during its glory days, and then at Dallas and a couple other stops. Anybody know if he's still the big kahuna in Hugh Beaumont?

 

It would appear so:
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18744659&BRD=2287&PAG=461&dept_id=535706&rfi=6

 

I got a call from the ME about this gig. She said she wanted someone who will change the way their staff thinks -- more stories about the high school wrestler and less local copy on the rockets, texans, etc. From what I gathered, it's a veteran staff that she called "set in their ways." She acted liked they want a yes-man who will stand up to the staff, but fold to management.
And that's all I have to say about that.

 

the paper posted three various editor openings on jj.com all on the same day. anyone know the reason why?
did they suddenly get an ok to fill several spots or is this a bit of a sinking ship?

 

I'm told it's largely coincidental for what it's worth.

 

Three of these five spots were posted before, so I think it's just a continuation of the job search.