Sports/Outdoors Reporter at The Dickinson Press

Hey everybody,
I"m the Sports Editor at The Dickinson Press and as of today, we have an opening for our Sports/Outdoors Reporter position.Feel free to PM me with any questions you might have on this position. We are looking to move quickly as it's the busiest time of the year.



The Dickinson (N.D.) Press has an immediate opening for a Sports/Outdoors Reporter to complete a two-person sports department complimented by part-timers. The Press is a six-day AM (no Monday newspaper) with a 7,200 print circulation and a growing Web base.

We cover an exciting prep scene that is stronger than one might imagine and Dickinson State University, a highly regarded NAIA program. The reporter focuses on the prep beat (two high schools in town and about a dozen in the surrounding area) during the fall, winter and spring and shares coverage of three beats during the summer months: an American Legion baseball club that recently won two consecutive state championships, professional and amateur rodeo, and the local auto racing scene. The summer also brings opportunities to cover golf, recreational sports and an annual high school football all-star game between North Dakota and Montana. The position also requires reporting and layout for a two-page Outdoors section published on Thursday.

The ideal candidate will be a self-starter able to come up with and produce a strong balance of features, columns and enterprises stories alongside typical game recaps and previews while also maintaining a blog and helping institute any other new ideas he or she may have. Knowledge of page design is essential to this position and we take our own photographs, so experience in those fields is helpful, though we will train the right person.

We are looking for someone with at least two years of journalism experience, but strong recent journalism school graduate will receive serious consideration.
If you are interested in the position, please send a cover letter, resume and no more than six clips writing and/or design samples to Managing Editor Jennifer McBride at jmcbride@thedickinsonpress.com.

 

Stitch, are you staying in the business

 

How many hours from Fargo is it?

 

Professional rodeo in Dickinson?

 

@RickStain ... It's about 4 hours from Fargo and 1 hour, 15 minutes from Bismarck. You can get to the Black Hills (and Sturgis) in about 3 hours.
@Slappy ... Yes, we have an annual pro rodeo the weekend before the 4th of July, the Champions Ride Saddle Bronc Match in August (most of the top riders in the world come) and have cowboys who go to the National Finals Rodeo or Circuit Finals Rodeo on a yearly basis. Shaun Stroh, a Dickinson saddle bronc rider, won the NFR (the average title, not the world championship) in 2009.

Dickinson is a city of about 16,500 people and growing thanks to the oil boom in western North Dakota. It is one of the most economically sound areas in the country. No one is losing jobs here. In fact, fast food joints are paying a little TOO handsomely just so they can get and keep workers.

As for the area, Dickinson sits on the doorstep of Theodore Roosevelt National Park and the Badlands. The area hangs its hat on the outdoors, hunting in particular. Every fall, thousands flock to southwest N.D. for deer and pheasant season. There are great golfing opportunities with nationally recognized Bully Pulpit Golf Course in neighboring Medora 35 minutes away and one of the top public courses in the state just a five-minute drive from our office. If you're into fitness, we have the West River Community Center, a 93,000-square foot fitness and aquatics facility where we get a discounted rate. As for facilities, Dickinson State football and track moved into a $16 million football and track stadium in 2010 and it has one of the best press boxes I've ever seen. Trinity High School, the local Catholic school, has a perennially strong basketball program and a facility that seats 2,500 where many postseason tournaments are held. As for the surrounding area, it's really spread out just like the rest of N.D.

 

I held this position awhile ago for two years before moving to a bigger paper.

High school sports are a big deal in the area and it's a strong area for basketball. The local private school is very good at almost everything, and the large school in town definitely has its stars, though it doesn't win quite as consistently.

Dickinson is good people, but with the oil boom, finding a place to live could be come difficult. Still, you could do a lot worse, and the pay (at least when I was there) is very competitive for its size.

PM me if you have any questions.

 

Sounds like a fun combination, sports and outdoors, in a cool place.

 

I believe Stitch's salary carried over from a different company newspaper.

I started out at 25,000 at The Dickinson Press. I'm a little shocked to see a sports reporter making 32,500 at a 7,000 circulation, 6-day a week newspaper.

That, my friend, is not the standard.

 

You have to consider the fringe benefit of being able to live in the only place in the country where you'll be able to find a job to hold you over when you get laid off or the newspaper folds.

 

It also has to do with how desperate a newspaper can be to fill a position. I know a SE at a 13,000 circ. making 28,000 and a SE at a 21,000 making 32,000.

Leverage is one thing. 32,500 for a sports reporter is like gold for a 7,000 circ paper. Williston hasn't upped their salaries and neither has my paper despite the oil activity.

 

Stitch did u have to write the outdoors stories or paginate and edit what comes in for free lancers or off the wire?

 

Bumping this up because the position is officially up for grabs as of Friday. As always, PM me for any more details on the position.