Sportswriter opening at AV Press (Palmdale, CA)

Saw this on JJobs...

Sports Writer for L.A. County Daily

The Antelope Valley Press, a dynamic General Excellence suburban daily newspaper in North Los Angeles County, seeks a hard-working sports reporter to cover prep and community sports, with an eye to breaking stories on player development, good features and enterprise reporting. Our newspaper won California Newspaper Publishers Association 1st Place Sports Coverage this year, so only self-starters with deep desire to excel need apply. The successful prospect has clips that show detail, fresh approach, ability to report the entire story and writing that won’t let a reader put down the paper. Responsibilities of this full-time position include reporting, writing, copy editing, and meeting firm deadlines. Experience at small daily or quality weekly a plus. Journalism degree or related discipline. Will consider promising recent graduate. Send resume and great clips to Antelope Valley Press, P.O. Box 4050, Palmdale, CA 93590-4050 or e-mail to personnel@avpress.com.

 

Toby, if you're anywhere around... who's leaving? I know you've got Merisa covering Big League World Series in Kalamazoo. Just curious. As for everyone else, I've had dealings with AVP and it's a great operation.

 

This would be a good job. I'd highly recommend it.

In fact, I applied there for something similar not too long ago. I critiqued their pages and was interviewed twice on the phone and once in person, for almost five hours.

Didn't get the job, and still don't particularly understand why. That was not explained clearly, and that was, frankly, inexplicable and insulting given the extent of the interactions we had.

Had that not happened, however, I would be applying there again, and I'd willingly and happily work hard and do a good job for this paper and these editors. Everyone makes mistakes and I believe one was made in that case. But then, I am not a recent college grad or someone with little experience.

Jump on this one if you are, and if you want something in the Southern California area, because this would be a good job.

 

Unfortunately, many editors are unprofessional when it comes to communicating with candidates.

 

Anybody know where Robert Johnson went? He was the sports editor there about two years ago

 

A couple of quick items:

Robert Johnson is at the Santa Barbara News-Press.

The search we conducted for an ASE lasted somewhere in the neighborhood of 14 months and included contact with several good candidates. During that process, which ended with a hire in May, there were some occasions when I did not keep in contact with people as well as I would have liked either because of day-to-day duties, searching for a reporting position that came open during that time or other factors. That said, I don't agree there was a lack of communication in regard to the situation above.

As for the opening, Eric Shannon has left after 12 months to return to school. He covered a handful of prep beats (track, cross country, soccer) as well as working on plenty of community news and handling the coverage for a minor league soccer team and two start-up semi-pro football teams.

We have received more than 100 e-mails related to the position, and we are identifying candidates. If you have applied and would like to follow up, please feel free to e-mail me. While we would like to have a hire before the fall sports season is too far along, we are heading into production week for our football preview section.

 

I'll just say that Toby is one of the really good people and editors in the business today. While this is a small paper, I think working for Toby makes this a very good job.

 

As an AVP alum of 7 1/2 years and a current AV resident, you could do a lot worse here. Toby and Co. do a fine job with a varied, diverse and busy amalgam of sports -- just look at the beats that the departed Eric Shannon had.

While they could do a better job of covering golf in an area that loves it (gratuitous plug here), they do a great job covering everything else in a vast area that does include LA, because the AV is a bedroom community with a huge number of people who didn't live in the area even 15 years ago.

Putting this area into size perspective for the moment, if you took the core of the Antelope Valley: the major cities of Lancaster and Palmdale and the smaller towns immediately around it, you'd have a population base larger than St. Louis.

If you expanded out to the full Valley, you'd have a population base about the size of Cleveland.

 

Filled. 135 applicants.

 

When do you start?