SEC Football Writers

[Tdell8]

Saturday Down South is looking for freelance writers, per J-Jobs. Below are the details. Does anyone have some inside info on this? Thanks!


Description:

SaturdayDownSouth.com is looking to hire serious sports writers to cover SEC football. This is a unique opportunity to reach a large audience of passionate fans and become part of a growing company.

Responsibilities:

- Produce 10 to 20 articles per week

- Articles include analysis, opinion columns, and aggregating news

- Work with our editorial team to refine and publish on a deadline

- Opportunity to input ideas and identify potential storylines

Requirements:

Requirements for this job include a bachelor's degree, at least two years of professional experience covering sports, and demonstrated digital publishing expertise. Preference given to those with years of sports writing experience.

The ideal candidates are able to demonstrate substantial football analysis, understand storylines and pay close attention to detail while working on a deadline.

Apply to [email protected] with resume and links to relevant clips of your work. Tell us what makes you qualified for this position and what teams, if any, are most known. In the Subject line, write 'YOUR NAME - Application for SEC Football Writer'

About Saturday Down South:

Saturday Down South is the largest website dedicated to SEC football coverage with over 15 million visits per month last season. The website has a full-time staff in its office outside of Orlando, Florida. The freelance writer positions are a good way to get your feet in the door on a growing company as we look to expand our coverage and can lead to a full-time position.

 

[Christopher Smith]

What questions do you have?

-Christopher Smith, SDS Editor

Saturday Down South is looking for freelance writers, per J-Jobs. Below are the details. Does anyone have some inside info on this? Thanks!


Description:

SaturdayDownSouth.com is looking to hire serious sports writers to cover SEC football. This is a unique opportunity to reach a large audience of passionate fans and become part of a growing company.

Responsibilities:

- Produce 10 to 20 articles per week

- Articles include analysis, opinion columns, and aggregating news

- Work with our editorial team to refine and publish on a deadline

- Opportunity to input ideas and identify potential storylines

Requirements:

Requirements for this job include a bachelor's degree, at least two years of professional experience covering sports, and demonstrated digital publishing expertise. Preference given to those with years of sports writing experience.

The ideal candidates are able to demonstrate substantial football analysis, understand storylines and pay close attention to detail while working on a deadline.

Apply to [email protected] with resume and links to relevant clips of your work. Tell us what makes you qualified for this position and what teams, if any, are most known. In the Subject line, write 'YOUR NAME - Application for SEC Football Writer'

About Saturday Down South:

Saturday Down South is the largest website dedicated to SEC football coverage with over 15 million visits per month last season. The website has a full-time staff in its office outside of Orlando, Florida. The freelance writer positions are a good way to get your feet in the door on a growing company as we look to expand our coverage and can lead to a full-time position.

 

[black dude with pompano]

Didn't you layoff some of the people you hired recently?

 

[travis5mith]

Interested, but confused on to how it is going to work if you don't live near multiple SEC schools.

 

[AMS]

Is compensation weekly or per story? Are there practice/game credentials available if the reporter is in an SEC town?

 

[Christopher Smith]

Interested, but confused on to how it is going to work if you don't live near multiple SEC schools.

Most of our stories are analysis/opinion and curated news. We don't do much actual reporting except for occasional phone interviews. Feel free to check out our website to see what kinds of stories we produce.

 

[Christopher Smith]

Is compensation weekly or per story? Are there practice/game credentials available if the reporter is in an SEC town?

Compensation is per story, and we have occasionally gotten game credentials, but it would depend on the person's experience level and our trust in them.

 

[Christopher Smith]

Didn't you layoff some of the people you hired recently?

We haven't hired anyone since August, but yes, we did let go of a few writers after the season. These freelance positions will be temporary, August until January. But there's a chance that one or two people could become full-time hires.

 

[BlakeMorgan]

Is a degree required? I'm a junior at an SEC school right now.

 

[Christopher Smith]

Is a degree required? I'm a junior at an SEC school right now.

I think we may list it in our requirements on the post. According to our CEO, yes. According to me, "required?" No. But we will give strong preference to those with good professional experience.

 

[Jim Luther Davis]

When do you expect to make a decision or contact candidates?

 

[Christopher Smith]

When do you expect to make a decision or contact candidates?

We don't have an exact timeline for making a decision, but we'd like to have our team more or less in place by June, I'd say.

 

[Crootin]

I'm curious, what kind of compensation per article can one expect?

 

[travis5mith]

Most of our stories are analysis/opinion and curated news. We don't do much actual reporting except for occasional phone interviews. Feel free to check out our website to see what kinds of stories we produce.

Done, done, and done.

 

[Christopher Smith]

I'm curious, what kind of compensation per article can one expect?

We haven't finalized compensation, so don't hold me to this, but currently we're discussing $15 to $25 per story.

 

[re2pectthehustl3]

Do you keep an archive for writers stories?

 

[Dick Whitman]

What a ****show.

Run from this, young writers. Go cover preps for your local daily instead. This will get you nowhere.

 

[Christopher Smith]

What a ****show.

Run from this, young writers. Go cover preps for your local daily instead. This will get you nowhere.

Yeah, because we all know newspapers are the future of the industry! I've done the preps for a local daily route out of college, and I'm making a 50 percent higher salary now with online stuff. So many more opportunities in 2015 online, as well -- for example, I came to SDS as a beat writer last July and now I'm running the editorial side of the website. That doesn't happen at a local daily newspaper.

Also, there's the business side. We averaged 15 million page views per month last season, and more than twice that in November. How many daily newspapers can make that claim? Have we forgotten that "newspaper reporter" now is ranked as America's worst career job?

 

[Christopher Smith]

Do you keep an archive for writers stories?

Every writer has a sort of profile page on the site with an archive. We use WordPress, which includes an "archive" of sorts as well.

 

[Dick Whitman]

They need to learn how to report, not to pontificate about SEC football for $15 a "story" for some Web site that can't even get game credentials.