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sports writer/designer, Waynesboro, Va.

Discussion in 'Journalism Jobs' started by boots, Jun 21, 2006.

  1. boots

    boots New Member

    We want a sports writer, but not just one who can cover a game and then act as a stenographer. Our readers want to know why the game was won or lost. They want in-depth profiles of athletes. And they want their sports local.

    If you enjoy covering prep sports, can design crisp pages on deadline and want to work for a newspaper that has raised the bar on community journalism, there is an opening at The News Virginian. The bonus is living in Virginia’s breathtaking Shenandoah Valley, where the cost of living is right and the traffic is light, and you’re still just a few miles from Charlottesville (U.Va.) and Harrisonburg (JMU). We also are a farm team for the medium-sized and metro papers in our chain.

    We cover nine high schools and a military academy with teams in one of the toughest football and basketball districts in Virginia. We put a premium on enterprise reporting and on routinely beating a daily competitor only a few miles away. Knowledge and comfort with Quark is important. Being a storyteller with an eye for detail is a must.

    We want a hungry journalist, not someone who carpet-bombs us with a resume, along with applying to a list of other newspapers advertising on this Web site. If you’re serious and the real deal, e-mail Managing Editor J. Todd Foster at jfoster@newsvirginian.com and send a resume, some of your best clips and tear sheets along with a letter telling us why we should hire you to Foster at P.O. Box 1027, Waynesboro, Va., 22980.
     
  2. 35in44

    35in44 Member

    Used to live in the area. If you want info, PM me.
     
  3. Hustle

    Hustle Guest

    The news editor there, Jim Sacco, is a former SE both there and at various other stops. I go back with him a ways and he's always been a great guy as far as I was concerned.
     
  4. micropolitan guy

    micropolitan guy Well-Known Member

    One of my best friends from college lives there. He loves it, but he doesn't work at the paper. A beautiful area.
     
  5. I don't know a thing about the paper, but I have been to that part of Virginia several times. It's not a terrible area and Harrisonburg (at least in the late 1990's) isn't a bad spot. All the typical chains, closeish to DC. Not a bad place to live if you're right out of school or maybe married. But I wouldn't want to be 27 and single there.
    I also don't know about this region having VA's best football. I mean, the Hampton Roads area produces all the talent. But still, should be some pretty great preps action down there. Good job, I'd imagine.
     
  6. franticscribe

    franticscribe Well-Known Member

    What Mary Baldwin girls aren't good enough for you?

    I spent a couple of years working at one of the other dailies in the area. The N-V has gotten a lot better in the last three to four years, but it's still a really small, Media General paper, with a Media General paycheck, in an old industrial town. It's a great place if you like camping, hiking, biking, hunting, etc., but probably isn't so hot if you're looking for other young professionals to hang out with.

    As for sports at the N-V, it's all preps all the time. Football in the region is OK. There's a couple of small high schools that are usually contenders in their class. They've got one of Virginia's best basketball programs down the road in Staunton, but during my time in the area the N-V usually only covered them come tournament time.

    It's not a bad place to start your career.
     
  7. Breakyoself

    Breakyoself Member

    Pay is shit.
     
  8. Cosmo

    Cosmo Well-Known Member

    The high schools there are all AA and A (and one private school). When they say they have some of the preps in the state, it's in AA. You won't be seeing Phoebus or Hampton or Bethel or Robinson play out there any time soon.
     
  9. TheHacker

    TheHacker Member

    Waynesboro was my first stop, kind of a long time ago. The paper has undergone a lot of changes since I was there, so I can't speak much to the workings of it. Apparently, based on a previous post, the pay hasn't changed much.

    But it's cheap to live there because it's the middle of nowhere. Charlottesville is probably half an hour. Harrisonburg is maybe 40 minutes. you'll know you're not anywhere near a major city. The job is preps, preps, preps. And they have a team in the Shenendoah Valley League, which is an NCAA-sanctioned summer baseball league. I saw David Eckstein and Mike Maroth play in that league the summer I was there. We covered the hell out of that.

    The paper in Staunton is the competition, covering essentially the same set of high schools. So every game you go to, one of their guys will be there too. It's really overkill when you think about it. Like someone else said, these are rural AA and A schools, and they're routinely being covered by two daily papers. How many other places have that situation?

    Great place to have a family, but if you're single, with the schedule you're going to be working, you'll have no life. Zero.
     
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