Sports Editor, Press Enterprise, Bloomsburg, PA.

What kind of salary do you think is reasonable? $40k? Say for an in-state candidate with five years newspaper experience, including two seasons as Div I-AA football beat writer, one season Div I men's basketball beat writer and a couple years as lead designer at a 70k?

 

I worked at the Press for 18 months. As a single guy, I made 22k and was living very comfortably. Houses in the area are amazingly cheap if you're looking to buy. The only downside to the area was lack of stuff to do, which meant a lot of drinking and golf.

 

There is one hell of a fair in Bloomsburg!

 

I would echo a lot of this thread. It is a very solid paper and has always been a good sports section.

As for some of the other stuff -- the Shamokin situation was a mess. At least one of the guys who left there was a victim of his own ambition. He wanted to do a good job, they were content with mediocre and not willing to pay for more. As for the blog stuff, there is probably a lesson there for a lot of folks.

Sunbury has been pretty stable since Housenick took over. The designer job is the first I have heard of in sports there for a while. Housenick has really improved that section, in part because his arrival coincided with a new publisher who had a better attitude about what they should cover.

IF I were a young guy who could afford to live on what papers that size can afford to pay, I'd go after this one myself. It is a very decent gig.

 

The fair is a fantastic thing as long as you can stand the traffic in town for a week. Vince's cheesesteaks are the best.

Another selling point would be springs and late summers in a college town where the women make up about 65% of the students on the campus of Bloom. U.

 

The fair is a very good thing.

Don't know if I'd feel the same way if I lived on the back end of Bloomsburg, but man ...

 

Jim Sachetti knows his stuff. A lot of the news folks there have gone on to much bigger and better things. I was impressed with their operation when I went in for an interview for a news reporter position last year. And it is a family owned paper, if anyone keeps track of such things.

I believe they also are hard on NASCAR when it is at Pocono, given that Mr. Excitement, James Spencer, hails from Berwick.

Don't know what, if anything, they do with Penn State, which is maybe 90 minutes down I-80.

As for the blogger in question ... didn't realize he'd bailed for Sunbury, then had the door slammed shut on him.

 

Not sure if they still do, but the P-E used to use Neil Rudel for Penn State. WHile that sucked for staffers who aspire to cover the Nits, it was a winning situation for the readers since Rudel is one of the best on the beat.

 

Rudel's no longer on the beat since he got promoted in Altoona to ME (though he's gonna be the No. 2 guy at games), and I don't know how much leeway the new PSU beat writer, Cory Giger, will have to freelance.

 

I remember Cory from my Carolina League days. We were beat writers for different teams and we hung out at the all-star game. Good person and good writer.

BTW -- I agree. The Bloomsburg Fair does rock!

 

The obvious response would be: hi Cory!

 

I've seen the Press Enterprise before, it's a great paper. Whoever lands this job is lucky.