Sports/news position near Tahoe...really!!

From jjobs:

The Sierra Nevada Media Group is looking for a group reporter to cover everything from local sports to crime to local politics around beautiful Lake Tahoe. The right candidate loves variety with their job, works well on deadline, and understands the way our industry is changing. A successful reporter in this position will understand the needs of a community newspaper group, as well as the unique readerships of our products. We expect all reporters to average two stories per day. Photography skills might put you ahead of the rest of the candidates. E-mail resumes, a cover letter, 3-5 writing clips, and a sample of your photography to Executive Editor Ryan Slabaugh, rslabaugh@sierranevadamedia.com. EOE.

 

Er, two stories a day? I'm all for productivity, but let's be real. Putting a number count on something like that is borderline idiotic.

 

Position has a salary range of $25K-30K. I'm thinking that's not much in Tahoe.

 

But Tahoe's only... ah crap, you're right there! What more do you want???

 

Beware The Story Quota. Actually, what I'd love to see is for somebody to take this job as an experiment. After a while, start counting hours. Then secretly record a chat in which the editor blatantly disregards and disdains wage-and-hour laws. Then consult a lawyer to see what steps are next in the process. Of course this blackballs the employee from the business forever, but is that such a bad fate these days?

 

I had a phone interview recently where they were looking for two or three stories per day. It wasn't this place.

 

Slabaugh is a shady character. He talks a big game, but never delivers. This one would really scare me.

 

Where do you work where you don't produce two stories a day?

No wonder newspapers are in trouble.

 

I don't consider an 8-inch rewrite a story. There are many newspapers where you're expected to do just one a day. Five quality stories per week is plenty, especially if you have to go out and report.

If you're just stuck in an office doing one-source phoners stories all-day, two stories wouldn't be so tough.

The problem with newspapers is that reporters have to do too much.

 

I'm reading this as two stories with some relative meat on them per day, meaning unique reporting/interviewing for those occasions and probably clocking in somewhere around 15 inches. There are plenty of days when I do that, but to put a tag on it and say that's your daily benchmark, meet it per your job description, that's stupid. Assuming, of course, that you're doing this on top of all the ecumenical work necessary, i.e. call-ins, stat-keeping, blogging, editing, help with lay-out, video-making and the like.

The job description should be to write what needs to be written. If that's two a day, great. Do it. If not, you shouldn't need to feel stretched thinner than a tea cozy for no reason.

 

Our expectation is 1.5 bylines per publication day (not day worked), which is six days a week, so 9 per week.

Anything that involves going to a source and using quotes gets a byline, so if I'm short I can fudge a few one-source phoners, but I try to make them "real" stories.

 

Problem with the quota is if you're writing two stories, shooting photos, probably editing community submissions and maybe laying out, you are stretched thin. It seems as if this is like the Elk City job where you work your eight hours and then can cover sports at night.