Sports editor -- Beaumont (Texas) Enterprise

The reigning APME Texas Newspaper of the Year (30,000-125,000 circulation) seeks a writing, hands-on sports editor who will lead three reporters' strong, smart and energetic execution of intensely local coverage both between the lines and outside them, including contributions to news, enterprise and our high-profile sports presence on social media and the web.

The Beaumont Enterprise, circulation 32,000, is the six-largest Hearst newspaper and third-largest in Texas. We’ve groomed journalists – especially in sports – for metro papers all over the country, including sister papers in Houston (90 miles west), San Antonio and San Francisco. The editor was sports editor of award-winning sections in Seattle and San Antonio and assistant sports editor in Dallas and Los Angeles. Our success is noted by the Associated Press Sports Editors. We have had a dozen top-10 APSE mentions in the past three years and were a top 10 Sunday and top 20 daily section in 2012. This is the job you need to get the job you’ll want.

The ideal candidate will have good communication, organization, leadership, coaching and editing skills; a collaborative management style focused on putting audience first; and a broad vision of what makes great sports content, with the ability to match resources to that vision.

High school football is the centerpiece of our operation. We frequently run sports stories and features on 1A, and our Friday and Saturday editions are loaded with special high school coverage. High school football games in Southeast Texas can draw close to 10,000 fans. This area also produces professional athletes – Jamaal Charles of the Kansas City Chiefs, Jay Bruce of the Cincinnati Reds and Kendrick Perkins of the Oklahoma City Thunder, among others.

Lamar University is the main university in Beaumont. The men's basketball team, now under the direction of Pat Knight, reached the NCAA tournament in 2011, and the school revived its football program in 2010 after cutting it in 1989. We staff most home and away games for football and basketball, but we don't always do things the traditional way.

Send a cover letter, including your sports coverage philosophy and links to no more than four work samples, a resume and references to Timothy M. Kelly, Editor, The Beaumont Enterprise, at tkelly@hearstnp.com, with the subject line SPORTS EDITOR APPLICATION: (your name).

http://www.journalismjobs.com/Job_Listing.cfm?JobID=1457253

It seems Dabe, the interim SE, has moved on to Wisconsin. The previous SE, Styf, I believe, took a job around Chicago.

 

Not to be mean, but there are several cool places in Texas and Beaumont isn't one of them.

 

So it's better to apply for the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal gig?

 

Beaumont is at least within driving distance of civilization.

 

This would be a terrific place for a young sports editor to launch a career.

Jon Styf, Chris Dabe and Michael Peters are among the grads of The Enterprise.

I am just down the road and happy to help whenever I can, for whatever that's worth.

 

Would the sports editor be responsible for layout? Job doesn't mention this, which makes me think this is strictly planning/writing and they may have universal desk.

 

There is a universal desk. The sports editor (at least when I was there until August of last year) did not do layout. The sports editor before me (Dave Wilson), who had an extensive design background and left to work at ESPN Playbook, did more design than I did. But Mike Tobias and the universal desk do a great job in sports. I learned a ton in my two years there. If anyone has any other questions (No, I have no insight on the progress of the process), feel free to ask.