Sports Writer, Flagstaff, AZ

That says a lot to me. To me, market penetration says a lot to your earning potential at a particular paper. Market size will be bigger in determining staff size, but how many papers you sell relative to your market size is the key to determining ad rates and, ultimately, salaries (in my opinion, at least).

So if you aren't penetrating your market well, you can't charge a ton for ads, which means less revenue flow, which means...that $20-25k they offer could be stagnant...

I'm just waiting for somebody to tell me a reason why that's wrong, otherwise I'm staying away.

I'm interested. I like the area. I have family in the Phoenix area and I love the way you experience such a dramatic climate shift from Phoenix to Flagstaff. But I don't want to go to a ship that's listing...

 

well christ, brian. stay away. there's no need for anyone here to sell you on the job.

 

Evidently, there is a need for someone here to try to get his post count up toward 20k without every contributing anything...

 

I'm with Tomas. You've obviously put some thought into it and decided it's not for you.

Why would someone else, who may WANT the job regardless, try to convince someone else to apply?

 

To correct some misconceptions ... there's nothing "metro" about Flagstaff. It's a town of around 50,000 (and that's including the small suburbs). The paper penetrates very well and is the main source of information/advertising outlet in the town. The student paper, no matter how many copies it prints, is no factor at all in day-to-day life in Flagstaff.

High school sports is followed very passionately, more so than Northern Arizona sports when I was there (and, although it's been a while, I still have friends there and am somewhat certain that's still the situation).

It has always paid poorly ($300 a week when I was hired in 1990. Oh baby! Then we all took 3 percent pay cuts, and I have to admit I took it better than most, since it was only $9).

Why does it pay poorly? My guess is - like so many other papers - because it can. They've never seemed to want to have anything more than a young sports staff which frequently turns over.

Great town in many, many ways. Certainly pricey.

 

Thanks for the answer. I know there's usually a backstory to why things are what they are and I wanted to flush it out. 12k in a 50k down isn't great market penetration but if there aren't sales outside the city (because there's nobody to buy) that explains a lot. I guess you can't sell papers to wildlife in the grand canyon.

I'd love to live there though...

 

Am I correct to assume that they don't travel with the basketball team? So away weeks would be covering preps or working the desk?

 

A couple of questions.
1. Where did I ask to be convinced to apply for the job? I did ask that if somebody knew my observation was wrong, to please explain. Those are two very different requests.
2. You ask "Why would someone else, who may WANT the job regardless, try to convince someone else to apply?" Why would you assume that the question was directed to those who are interested in applying? It seems logical that it would be targeted to those who KNOW the area, who aren't necessarily people who are applying for the job.

I know I'm a newbie on this board, but out of line is out of line and that comment by Mr. Heartbreaker was just a little bit off the rail, methinks.

 

This sure as hell sounds like you are asking for some convincing:

Also, if you can't handle Tom Petty's response, then you are going to have a real problem becoming more than a newb on this site, because that was pretty fucking tame.

 

Fortunately, there have been helpful responses from others on this board, so I'm not concerned with responses that are more "lame" than "tame."

By the way, great job taking a quote out of context. Hope you don't do that with your professional work.

 

You might choose your words more carefully. I'm just catching up on this exchange, but I read that comment exactly as Angola! read it.

What exactly did the quote mean, then?

 

And exactly how I read it.

So I hope, sir Griffin, your stories are clearer than your posts.