Sports editor, Stillwater (OK) NewsPress

TrooperBari · May 17, 2010

http://www.journalismjobs.com/Job_Listing.cfm?JobID=1170396

The Stillwater NewsPress in Stillwater, Okla., has an opening for a sports editor to lead its three-person sports department in a community that's passionate about its local sports. The right candidate will know how to offer readers the right blend of Division I and community sports coverage and how to manage young writers eager to provide that coverage. We cover Big 12 powerhouse Oklahoma State University but our readers also turn to us for local sports coverage – Stillwater and surrounding high schools, recreational sports, outdoors, rodeos, youth league. The successful candidate will be able to do it all – features, game coverage, columns, enterprise stories, design and coverage management. The NewsPress also is a force on the Web with blogs, video, audio and pod casts. We offer an attractive opportunity to be part of an award-winning news organization building readership in print and online in a progressive community with countless amenities, great location and plenty of sports. Send your resume with references, work samples and a cover letter sharing your vision for NewsPress sports coverage to: jbbittner@cnhi.com or Ms. J. B. Bittner, Stillwater NewsPress, 211 W. Ninth, Stillwater, OK 74076.
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A sports editor opening in a Big 12 city is nothing to sniff at. Still, the usual caveats for a CNHI shop apply, including turnover.

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/76278/
http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/73319/
http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/69305/
http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/61726/

fishbulb · May 17, 2010

TrooperBari said:

http://www.journalismjobs.com/Job_Listing.cfm?JobID=1170396

The Stillwater NewsPress in Stillwater, Okla., has an opening for a sports editor to lead its three-person sports department in a community that's passionate about its local sports. The right candidate will know how to offer readers the right blend of Division I and community sports coverage and how to manage young writers eager to provide that coverage. We cover Big 12 powerhouse Oklahoma State University but our readers also turn to us for local sports coverage – Stillwater and surrounding high schools, recreational sports, outdoors, rodeos, youth league. The successful candidate will be able to do it all – features, game coverage, columns, enterprise stories, design and coverage management. The NewsPress also is a force on the Web with blogs, video, audio and pod casts. We offer an attractive opportunity to be part of an award-winning news organization building readership in print and online in a progressive community with countless amenities, great location and plenty of sports. Send your resume with references, work samples and a cover letter sharing your vision for NewsPress sports coverage to: jbbittner@cnhi.com or Ms. J. B. Bittner, Stillwater NewsPress, 211 W. Ninth, Stillwater, OK 74076.
Click to expand...

A sports editor opening in a Big 12 city is nothing to sniff at. Still, the usual caveats for a CNHI shop apply, including turnover.

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/76278/
http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/73319/
http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/69305/
http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/61726/
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So, in other words, none of the last four hires lasted longer than six months?

Could this be the highest-turnover sports editor job in the country?

dm19 · May 17, 2010

I wonder what happened to Scott Nulph?

Riddick · May 17, 2010

I can't remember the last time I read so much venom about a job.
For those that don't want to read through all of them, the basic message is .......... STAY VERY FAR AWAY
It was especially telling when a couple of people wrote that they preferred being unemployed than working there

Runnin Rebel · May 18, 2010

The Cliff Notes version for those who don't feel like clicking...
Also, circulation is sub-7,000 now.

PBOWKER said:

OK, I can't hold my silence on this one, even though some others must.

The former SE at the Stillwater NewsPress resigned with having no job (he quit in early March). The former ME was run out. The former news editor got a job at OSU before he was run out. Paper went without an ME for six months.

One of the sportswriters on staff right now (who has covered OSU basketball and football) was basically promised the job long ago, and now there's a national job ad? Shameful.

Need to know more? Feel free to PM me or, for those of you know, email me directly.

I agreed to take over the ME job in late February, and could only take two weeks of it before I quit for an extreme level of micromanagement unseen anyplace else that I've worked. I was criticized for running OSU-related sports stories on the front page (that tells you exactly how many Cowboy stories you'll actually get on A1). Mark2010, on the good days you're looking at a 2 1/2 page section, not 4 or 5 pages, and often sports does not get a section front (Sunday, yes). The paper's circulation, in a growing Big 12 community, has free-falled to about 8,000 circulation. Reporters are forced to write business stories on businesses that buy ads in the paper.

This is a paper that really does have some talented people in the newsroom and the sportsroom, and they are truly under-appreciated. It's too bad.

It is a 3-person staff, including SE, and they must share the layout duties 7 days per week, to say nothing of the online stuff they'll have to provide. The two staffers would be hourly, and the SE exempt, so expect those 60-hour weeks. And don't forget the 5-day furloughs CNHI threw on these staffers in the second quarter. This could be a great job in a Big 12 community, but ...

Sorry ... consider the hounds released.
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Or how about this one?

Precious Roy said:

A source from up there has relayed that the horror stories being told here are just the tip of what is a frozen diarrhea iceberg ready to take down the Titanic that is your sports journalism career.
Stay away.
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And just a bit about CNHI for good measure...

Precious Roy said:

Because they are the kind of company that is actively hating their employees by hiring publishers with the sole intention of running off good people to either: A) Cut the job entirely or B) run off the older guys so they can hire a guy right out of school that doesn't know any better for $8 an hour and make them work 80 hours a week and only pay them for 40.
As a person that went through B as the young guy coming in that didn't know better and just thought that's the way it was in the business. Now I have a few years, a couple of jobs and much better employers under their belt I would NEVER return to CNHI. I think I would go work at Wal-Mart as a greeter than take a job from them again after such treatment like...
Not direct quotes, but paraphrasing the treatment
"Well, he may work until 1 a.m. putting out the paper, but if he doesn't show up at 8 a.m. the next morning he isn't doing his job."
Or another, from the publisher...
"I know that source lied to your face and you went with a story, but since he is my son's friend he is in the right and you are in the wrong. You are a bad reporter and we're going to hire the guy in our advertising department and treat him like a king because he says you ruined his chance to play pro basketball." (I didn't, he never had a chance)
Or maybe the classics like choosing either mileage or the two hours spent to get to an event, a horrible ad department that spent all day on ass while bitching that we weren't doing our job or just the fact that many CNHI papers are in small towns where Golden Cows are not only worshiped, they are given many blatant and horrible favors. For example: The biggest Golden Cow in the town I worked in sold GREEN meat. Not just bad, rancid. Packaged with the rancid side upside down and put to market. Did we run a story about that? Nope, cause they bought ads. However, we did run a bunch of stories about how horrible Wal-Mart was because they were going to come into the town and build a Supercenter. Made up a bunch of B.S. about why it was bad for the town but it was really because Wally didn't advertise (the town already had a basic Wal-Mart, they just wanted to move in the grocery side).
Sorry, rant over, I just hate CNHI so much.
I'm so glad that rag got shut down, that town now has a family weekly there. I hated those people too, but maybe they are better.
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Roscablo · May 18, 2010

dm19 said:

I wonder what happened to Scott Nulph?
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He had a byline today so who knows what's going on or when he is leaving. How long has he been there? Less than a year, right?

HandsomeHarley · May 18, 2010

Stillwater is a nice town to visit, but I'm too old for that shit.

JakeandElwood · May 19, 2010

Welp, looks like things are pretty well covered, but a reliable source told me that since the current publisher got there 26 months ago, 27 people have been fired or quit. In a newsroom that's fully staffed at eight people, that's staggering, and it tells you all you need to know about this position.

printdust · May 19, 2010

A blooming idiot would take this job. No one else.

Scott Nulph was a really nice guy in the times I've met him. Good people. Makes my stomach turn to see this crap happen to good people.

Shaggy · May 19, 2010

Sadly, they'll get 50 apps minimum.

Mark2010 · May 19, 2010

What kind of clowns run that place, anyway?

printdust · May 21, 2010

C stands for CNHI and for clowns, or so it would seem.

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Sports editor, Stillwater (OK) NewsPress

TrooperBari Well-Known Member

fishbulb New Member

dm19 Member

Riddick Active Member

Runnin Rebel Member

Roscablo Well-Known Member

HandsomeHarley Well-Known Member

JakeandElwood Well-Known Member

printdust New Member

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Sports editor, Stillwater (OK) NewsPress

TrooperBari Well-Known Member

fishbulb New Member

dm19 Member

Riddick Active Member

Runnin Rebel Member

Roscablo Well-Known Member

HandsomeHarley Well-Known Member

JakeandElwood Well-Known Member

printdust New Member

Shaggy Guest

Mark2010 Active Member

printdust New Member

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