Sports editor, Fayetteville, N.C.

The Fayetteville Observer, an APSE award-winning 65K circulation newspaper in North Carolina, is looking for an editor to manage the sports department and oversee the desk at night.

Key areas of responsibility

• Work desk four nights per week, including laying out pages, editing copy and making decisions about story and photo play

• Work one day shift where focus is on planning

• Oversee college sports coverage, including supervision of reporters and planning coverage for ACC and region colleges

• Work closely with AME on planning for high school sports coverage, big event coverage and long-term enterprise and features

Qualifications

• Experience and expertise as a page designer

• Excellent copy editing skills and news judgment

Qualified candidates should send a resume and cover letter to:

Dennis Hall
Assistant Managing Editor/Sports & New Media
The Fayetteville Observer
P.O. Box 849
Fayetteville, NC 28306

You may also apply via e-mail to:
halld@fayobserver.com

 

This looks like title inflation. The SE reports to the AME/sports, which is OK but in this case means being the lead desk person four days a week and planning (in consultation with the power above you) for another. Pretty soft definition of a department head.

 

It sounds like it's an ASE position, from what you say. Wonder if it comes with SE pay or ASE pay?

It's like with SIDs. Most of them are now associate ADs for media relations (or communications) and the top assistant gets a title like Director of Communications...well is the director of communications getting paid like the head of the department, or did they just give this person a fancy title while still paying assistant SID pay.

 

anyone know who, if anyone, is leaving?

 

Talked to Dennis at the APSE judging this year and this was a position on his wish list ... which is actually encouraging, since he got it. He comes highly recommended as boss material from a friend who was the SE in Dallas.

 

The paper does good work and they have good people. Dennis is good people. He did great work when he was at The Dallas Morning News and is doing a good job at this paper.

 

I may be incorrect, but isn't this where John Newsom works and didn't he post here recently about a move he is making?

If this is a totally new position, as it sounds, then that's fantastic. Small scraps of good news are better than nothing in this age.

 

I believe it is a new position from what I hear. Dennis had been helping run the sports section. They are one of the few papers that are actually adding staff. They also added another sports reporter position to cover high schools and some of their colleges. Not sure who got that gig.

 

I'm curious as to the structure of this staff. As I asked earlier, is this position basically a repackaged ASE position, or have they come up with a new job description?

I ask out of general curiosity about what's going on in the business and how others deal with the times we are in.

 

Good leadership to bounce ideas off of. Brian Tolley is the paper's EE. He's the former AME/Sports at The State in Columbia. Dennis, well, it's been covered here and everything said so far is spot on. I don't think this is a glorified ASE position per se, but they probably do need someone who rides closer herd over the production end of things. That said, I'm almost positive the day-to-day writing of the section will fall on this SE's shoulders with the big picture/broad enterprise stuff being formulated higher up. That's just a guess, though.

 

I have no pipeline -- maybe a dripping water faucet -- but from what I've heard there are an awful lot of chiefs at this shop relative to the number of Indians.