Sports writer needed...Sebring Fla.

Where's Sebring in relation to the pro teams in Florida? The ad says preps, college, some racing....three-days-a-week is interesting too. Any guess if it's a morning or afternoon rag?

Company: News-Sun
Position:
Sports Writer Needed
Location:
Sebring, Florida
Job Status: Full-time
Salary: Negotiable
Ad Expires:
April 24, 2007
Job ID: 704487
Website: http://www.newssun.com


Description:
The News-Sun, a three-days-per-week newspaper in central Florida, is seeking a full-time sports writer. Applicants must be strong writers with the ability to cover all kinds of sports. Photo and pagination experience is needed. Coverage includes three high schools, a community college, the annual 12 Hours of Sebring auto race and various community and youth sports. The job will also involve some feature writing and general assignment coverage, but will mostly be focused on sports. A good job for anyone who wants to gain experience in all facets of producing an award-winning sport section.

 

www.maps.google.com -- search "Sebring, FL"

 

Any sort of contact person would be helpful. Maybe an email and a name for who to contact.

 

You'll get preps, juco basketball and football baseball (no juco football down here), JV preps, Little League, preps and exactly one marquee race a year (the 12 Hours of Sebring). Oh, and also Little League and preps.

In relation to the pro teams in Florida, it's a long way away from any of them --- two hours to Tampa, three to Miami and four to Jacksonville. You'll only be able to go on your day off. And on your own dime.

(No, I've never worked for the Sebring paper. But I know how rural 3-day papers work.)

EDIT: Fixed brain fart. Not juco football. Juco baseball.

 

Worked there 20 years ago when it was still an NYT property -- and NYT screwed them, inadvertently perhaps, by constantly teasing about going daily and then backing off -- allowing Tampa Tribune to strenghten its presence via Highlands Today. News-Sun has bounced around between a few owners since NYT unloaded its small properties in 2000. Really liked the area (although Avon Park, Sebring and to a lesser extent Lake Placid are growing together along U.S. 27) and there were some pretty decent preps -- outstanding at times in baseball (covered Tom Gordon and Gabe White in high school). Never covered an auto race in my life before getting there, but got to be comfortable with the 12 Hours of Sebring. A lot of fun.

Location isn't great -- at least 90 minutes from Tampa and Orlando airports, for what that's worth. Lakeland, 60 miles north, is the biggest town of any size near Sebring. Other downside (to me, if not their readers) is HUGE push on rec stuff, bordering on otherworldly. I'm talking REGULAR SEASON youth baseball gamers (check Web site www.newssun.com). Wasn't like that when I was there. Golf is big there, too.

Definite pluses, definite minuses here. An OK jumping off point for someone who'd like to come to Florida. I might have stayed there had NYT not dicked around with daily/not daily business.

 

Seriously, are you gonna get that much access at the 12 Hours?
A guy from a thrice-weekly or a guy from the O-Sentinel or Tampa Trib? Who am I gonna give an interview to if it comes down to those three?
At least ALMS is relevant again, with Honda/Acura coming in.

 

If someone from Sebring has credentials, why shouldn't he have as much as access as the other papers? If he's got the same credentials they do, he's entitled to the same access.

 

As a former Highlands Today staffer, I can tell you this:
- You get excellent acess to the 12 Hour race. Race week is the most awesome week of the year. I always had a blast covering it. It's the only thing I miss about the place. For one week a year, that place was heaven.

-You'll spend the entire summer covering Dixie baseball and travelling to parts of Florida that aren't listed in tourist guides (like Clewiston and Okeechobee) that are the seventh layer of hell. At least since the News-Sun only published thrice a week, they at least got a break of some kind. And the heat! It's like that line from A Few Good Men:

-However, the reality is this: there is no nightlife there, whatsofreakingever. You'll be the youngest person in town, trust me. There are no single women there at all. None. Zip. Nada. Nothing but grumpy old people down there. They clog up the highways, hang out at the buffets and the Taco Bell (trust me on that one). It's good to know they're wasting the money that's stolen out of your tiny paycheck for their social security and viagra. And at the News-Sun, which is struggling pretty mightily in competition with the well-funded Highlands Today, you're not going to make very much at all.

-There will be no college sports, save the local community college, which has a baseball coach with the coolest name (Rick Hitt, imagine that) and who is one of the more quotable baseball coaches on the planet. They also have softball and volleyball (but no hoops at all).

-Sebring is what I like to call a geographical anomaly. It is close to nothing. Orlando is over an hour away. Tampa is two hours away. Miami is two hours away. And did I add there is no Target in Sebring? :'(

-The preps there are downright miserable. You'll cover some halfway decent prep baseball in two historic gems, Firemen's Field and Charles R. Head Stadium, where the old Florida league teams once played. But the rest is pretty lousy.

 

It's amazing to me that they don't have a daily. I don't see how they can be competitive in that situation. I faced that once before in North Carolina where I was surrounded by four dailies in our market. We had no wire, little resources and got hammered. I'm the SE at one of those dailies now and sure do like the view a whole lot better.

 

Are we supposed to guess what the contact information is?

 

after reading bamadog's post i'm curiously wondering what desperate hack still wants the contact info?

 

maybe someone who needs a job ...