Sports Editor -- Crystal River, Floda

[ogre]

from journalismjobs.com. ....

Company: Citrus County Chronicle
Position: Sports Editor
Location: Crystal River, Florida
Job Status: Full-time
Salary: Not Specified
Ad Expires: September 20, 2006
Job ID: 671715


Description:
Sports Editor CITRUS COUNTY CHRONICLE Crystal River, FL
The Citrus County Chronicle is seeking a Sports Editor. The sports editor leads a team of three staffers and several stringers. The sport editor and team members write and produce the daily sports sections, annual football tab, special sections and make additional contributions to the 28,000 circulation daily, 30,000 Sunday Citrus County Chronicle.

Successful applicant must be a strong sports editor/writer and paginator/page designer. Must be dedicated to excelling at local sports coverage, identifying and producing enterprise stories, and offering a balanced wire-copy package of college and pro sports. He/she must have the ability to lead a team and foster team members’ skills through effective communication, recognition, a positive attitude and routine feedback. Must be organized, deadline-conscious and a stickler for accuracy and fairness.

QUALIFICATIONS *B.A. degree or equivalent experience. *Two years in sports department of daily newspaper or four years with non-daily. *Expertise with Quark and familiarity with Photoshop. *Strong interpersonal skills. *Ability to work in and foster team-management structure. *Ability to quickly adapt to change.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS *Overseeing and coordinating production of the daily sports section. *Employing team management, manage and provide performance reviews for three employees. *Serving on the Editorial Leader Team and communicating department and corporate initiatives and issues of interest to team. *Coordinating local coverage for five high schools, the golf and outdoors pages *Hiring, scheduling and editing several stringers. *Coordinating with the photography team. *Leading weekly sports team meetings and communicating relevant corporate issues/news to team members. *Working on special projects as needed, including an annual football tab. *Scheduling employees. *Training employees. *Managing section space and work flow. *Coordinating wire service coverage. *Editing for libel, AP style, grammar, clarity, accuracy. *Writing crisp, accurate stories, headlines and photo captions. *Designing pages on Quark within parameters of general formats.

Please send cover letter, resume and samples to: Deborah Kamlot, HR Director e-mail: [email protected] fax: 352-564-2935

 

[Meatwad]

I think it's "Florida," not "Floda," but whatever.

Hey, it's my first post!

 

[zman82]

i looked but could not find, is this locally owned? the history page on their website is too long of a read. anyone?

 

[deskslave]

FWIW...Crystal River is a dump, populated mostly by retirees, and not particularly wealthy ones at that. The high schools, for the most part, are crap, and they play each other in district competition, mostly, so that means one of them will make the state playoffs in a lot of sports and lose by about 40 points.

It's geographically near enough to Tampa, but it's not near an interstate, so you're stuck taking U.S. 98 the whole way, and going through, oh, about 30 traffic lights.

I know bashing can be unfair, but there's really very, very little to redeem Crystal River.

As for the paper, unless they've changed their deadlines recently, the paper must be off the floor every night by around 10:30. That includes Friday nights. That means Friday-night football goes in the Sunday paper.

 

[Needles]

Hey, Mike Hampton is from there. And the Ted Williams museum is still there. Go, Citrus County.

needles

 

[Pops]

(... bumping real threads to the top ...)

 

[Lifer]

It's owned by Landmark, most famous for owning The Weather Channel and also the owner of dailies in Roanoke, Greensboro,Virginia Beach and a bunch of smaller ones.

Deskslave, last I knew the deadline was midnight plus extensions for FNF coverage. Also, there's now a tollroad that runs on a straight line to Tampa, about an hour to the airport so you don't have to take 19/98 down the coast, but make no mistake, this is no suburb, it's a self-contained smalltown community although it is growing fast. If you like golf and fishing, there's gulf, rivers and lakes all immediately accessible plus something like 15 golf courses in the county, some of them very nice, and you can get incredible deals golfing on summer afternoons when the seniors are done for the day and the courses fight over a small number of patrons. The cost of living is as low as you'll find in florida, crime is low, people are friendly and its quiet and without a lot of traffic. There's no college or major industry except for a nuclear plant and there are a ton of retirees but the population is getting younger with hordes of transplants from Miami and from parts north. If you're just out of college and single this is probably not where you'd want to be for more than a year or so - you aren't likely to have much to do.

But Deskslave was right about the preps, they aren't usually competetive out of the immediate area. I think Lecanto won a couple of state titles in softball and Crystal River used to be reliably good at football but now they're terrible. That's the extent of the coverage. No college or pro, just preps and features. The St. Pete Times has a bureau there that competes hard against the Chronicle but the Chronicle is widely perceived to be the local paper and has a lot more readers.

I lost track of who is still working there so I can't tell you anything about the newsroom or sports staff. It's honest and unglamorous local journalism. A good job to settle down if you're older or pad your resume if you're younger.

 

[playthrough]

Lifer hit it dead-on. I used to live not terribly far away and knew some guys who worked there. If you're an outdoorsy person or a golf nut you'll be pretty happy there for a couple years. The toll road is a big help in keeping you connected to the real world (Tampa), but it's still a long drive and pricey.

 

[Football_Bat]

Floda?

You chose ... floorly.

 

[zman82]

thanks everyone for the info. it actually doesn't sound terrible, but being close to a nuclear plant doesn't actually appeal that much to me. especially if homer simpson works there.

 

[deskslave]

Hey, Mike Hampton is from there. And the Ted Williams museum is still there. Go, Citrus County.

needles

Nope. It closed.

 

[playthrough]

The nuclear power plant isn't a big deal. It's not like you drive down main street and it's "gas station, McDonald's, newspaper office, nuclear power plant, Applebee's ...". I don't think you could get within 10 miles of it even if you wanted to.

 

[Needles]

The nuclear power plant isn't a big deal. It's not like you drive down main street and it's "gas station, McDonald's, newspaper office, nuclear power plant, Applebee's ...". I don't think you could get within 10 miles of it even if you wanted to.

Actually, Crystal River is well within the nuclear evacuation zone. You can tell by the signs along most roads. And, yes, there is a road (to the town's most populated beach, incidentally) in which you are no more than a mile from the plant's steam towers.

That sucks about the Williams museum shutting down. I was there in January 2005, and it was a nice little spot to take the family.

needles

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

Interviewed there in the late 1990s and even took the pre-employment drug screen.

The only person who could pick up the results of said drug screen was the human resources director --- who was on maternity leave. Nobody else was allowed. Nobody even bothered to ask her if she could take five minutes.

Two months later (after never returning my calls in the interim), the sports editor finally called me to let me know I'd passed my pre-employment drug test and find out when I could start.

They do have a very nice facility in an office park and Citrus County isn't the hellhole some people here are portraying. But make sure the HR director isn't 87/8 months pregnant when you interview.

 

[zman82]

so is this still considered sourth florida and does the cost of living represent that? i mean could you live on what they're paying?

 

[Lucas Wiseman]

so is this still considered sourth florida and does the cost of living represent that? i mean could you live on what they're paying?

South Florida? Hardly... more like north/central Florida. Totally different than south Florida.

 

[mediaguy]

Is Sourth Florida near South Floda? Crystal River is a little more than an hour due north of Tampa.

 

[Tom Petty]

Interviewed there in the late 1990s and even took the pre-employment drug screen.

The only person who could pick up the results of said drug screen was the human resources director --- who was on maternity leave. Nobody else was allowed. Nobody even bothered to ask her if she could take five minutes.

Two months later (after never returning my calls in the interim), the sports editor finally called me to let me know I'd passed my pre-employment drug test and find out when I could start.

They do have a very nice facility in an office park and Citrus County isn't the hellhole some people here are portraying. But make sure the HR director isn't 87/8 months pregnant when you interview.

for god's sake coffee, ball up like paul harvey and tell the rest of the story.

 

[playthrough]

The nuclear power plant isn't a big deal. It's not like you drive down main street and it's "gas station, McDonald's, newspaper office, nuclear power plant, Applebee's ...". I don't think you could get within 10 miles of it even if you wanted to.

Actually, Crystal River is well within the nuclear evacuation zone. You can tell by the signs along most roads. And, yes, there is a road (to the town's most populated beach, incidentally) in which you are no more than a mile from the plant's steam towers.

That sucks about the Williams museum shutting down. I was there in January 2005, and it was a nice little spot to take the family.

needles

Well yeah, it's in the evacuation zone. But it's no reason to not take a job. Now hurricanes, those are a good reason. Some Crystal River coastal areas have taken a pounding in recent years.

I always thought the TW Museum (billed as the "Hitters Hall of Fame") was a little bogus without Pete Rose.

 

[WrIIter]

The Ted Williams Hall has moved to beautiful Tropicana Field, one of the best atmospheres in Major League Baseball. "The Trop" is about an hour and 20 minutes from Crystal River, so that would be an unexpected benefit of this job, getting to go watch games there and all.

There are a few better options for closer entertainment though, like the mermaids at Weekie Wachee and riding the manatees at Homossossa Springs, home of the great Mike Hampton.