Sports Editor, Stillwater, OK

[Drip]

Sports Editor: The Stillwater NewsPress, a 7 day CNHI award-winning newspaper in Stillwater, home of Oklahoma State University, seeks an energetic sports editor who is ready to take our college and preps coverage to unmatched levels. In Stillwater, you'll have a staff of 2 to cover a Big 12 university and several successful high schools. You must be ready to lead that staff, design awesome pages and write great stories to go on those pages. You must be committed to immediate multimedia presentations. Knowledge of Quark, Photoshop necessary. Knowledge of iMovie, online software programs puts you in front. Stillwater is a fast-growing community in a city where everything is orange, even the buses. Send resumes to [email protected]

 

[2underpar]

staff of two, huh?

 

[Irish_Italian_Stallion]

SE plus staff of two. SE can write as much as he or she needs to.

Great college town. Slower pace for family person. Not too far from Tulsa or OKC.

 

[Rockbottom]

2under and I thought the same ... A staff of THREE in a D-1 college town virtually ensures sub-standard Cowboys coverage. Not to mention sub-standard high school coverage in an attempt to pay ANY attention to the Cowboys. And design? Please. Projects? Hah!

"The SE can write as much as he/she wants", to me, is code for "do you prefer a 60- or 70-hour week?"

RB

 

[Riddick]

"The SE can write as much as he/she wants", to me, is code for "do you prefer a 60- or 70-hour week?"

RB

But for most right now, it's code for, "do you prefer a job or unemployment?"

 

[Rockbottom]

Touche, Riddick. Though I am currently the latter, I would suggest that the aformentioned roadblocks do not exactly make me pine for the former in that case.

Stillwater seems, given the current information, WOEFULLY unprepared to do quality work. That was my overreaching point.

rb

 

[slappy4428]

All you have to do is get less than 10 words into this job description...

 

[nogood12]

I'm familiar with the situation and can answer any questions you may have.

 

[CornFlakes]

You could call Oklahoma State SID Kevin Klintworth and feel him out on the paper and find out if the Oklahoma State coverage has been adequate or woefully poor.

If you do accept the job, you will already have began a relationship with the most important media contact you will be dealing with.

 

[Rockbottom]

Due respect, Cornflakes, but I have worked in similar markets before. Three FT peeps covering BCS-level athletics + high schools simply CANNOT cut it. Say one (which is a HUGE stretch, and results in, at best, mediocre work ...) Stays back to draw lines on a Saturday night. That leaves two at the stadium. For me, and I have a smidge of experience with this, that is about half of what you need to do a solid job.

Three isn't enough. Not even by half, if you ask me.

RB

 

[Mark2010]

It's not really a large town by university city standards. Not sure what the circ is, but I've been there several times.

So, no they aren't going to scoop the Oklahoman on OSU stuff and they aren't going to have 8 stories on every football game. They just don't have the space, or the staff. It is what it is: a small daily that just happens to be located in a university town.

That being said, it would be a damn good opportunity for someone who is passionate about college sports but isn't getting a shot at some metro. You could shape coverage however you wanted: gamers, features, notes, columns, blogs, video, etc. Not sure what the travel budget is, but most places in the Big 12 are driveable, so that would be a plus.

If you're big into college sports and like that part of the country (neither of which is true for me), I would check into this.

 

[Mark2010]

Due respect, Cornflakes, but I have worked in similar markets before. Three FT peeps covering BCS-level athletics + high schools simply CANNOT cut it. Say one (which is a HUGE stretch, and results in, at best, mediocre work ...) Stays back to draw lines on a Saturday night. That leaves two at the stadium. For me, and I have a smidge of experience with this, that is about half of what you need to do a solid job.

Three isn't enough. Not even by half, if you ask me.

RB

Two at the stadium at home would be about all you'd ever get. Probably no more than one on the road. Heck, the whole section probably isn't more than 4-5 pages. Where are you going to put all the glowing prose you write?

Even though you are a hometown paper, you're never going to be any better than No. 3 in the market (behind OKC and Tulsa) when it comes to OSU stuff. I suspect management realizes that and accepts its lot in life accordingly.

 

[Fredrick]

I suspect management realizes that and accepts its lot in life accordingly

I don't know about that. I know nothing about Stillwater, but in many places that are woefully understaffed, the managing editor, front office types expect you to get all the breaking news first ... just because. A staff of three? Sounds to me like those covering the home games definitely come back to the office to lay out pages.
Good luck to whomever has the energy in this climate to tackle this job.

 

[2underpar]

not knowing anything about stillwater, etc. i just thought it was a small staff to be a hometown paper in the Big 12. regardless of staff size, if I'm the SE there I'm expecting to get more than my share of the breaking news.

 

[Mark2010]

Sure, if you're someone who hustles, you can get your share of stuff. Just might not have all that much space to run it. I've seen some college town papers (much smaller schools than big 12) that really do major blowouts for home football and basketball games. I wonder if Stillwater has that luxury.

 

[dargan]

Unlike most places in Oklahoma, Stillwater's a nice town. Back in college I went on a trip up there with my Aggie friends for a football game and found the atmosphere extremely friendly and overwhelmingly docile, almost to a creepy, Twilight Zone level.

Really nice people, from what I experienced, but I've heard others have Okie State horror stories.

 

[Precious Roy]

Lived south of Stillwater for almost a year, and the town is a nice place to be. Had the job opened when I was in the area, I likely would have jumped at the shot.
This is a CNHI paper though, so those applying should be aware of that fact.
But in this economic climate, we all need jobs.

 

[PBOWKER]

OK, I can't hold my silence on this one, even though some others must.

The former SE at the Stillwater NewsPress resigned with having no job (he quit in early March). The former ME was run out. The former news editor got a job at OSU before he was run out. Paper went without an ME for six months.

One of the sportswriters on staff right now (who has covered OSU basketball and football) was basically promised the job long ago, and now there's a national job ad? Shameful.

Need to know more? Feel free to PM me or, for those of you know, email me directly.

I agreed to take over the ME job in late February, and could only take two weeks of it before I quit for an extreme level of micromanagement unseen anyplace else that I've worked. I was criticized for running OSU-related sports stories on the front page (that tells you exactly how many Cowboy stories you'll actually get on A1). Mark2010, on the good days you're looking at a 2 1/2 page section, not 4 or 5 pages, and often sports does not get a section front (Sunday, yes). The paper's circulation, in a growing Big 12 community, has free-falled to about 8,000 circulation. Reporters are forced to write business stories on businesses that buy ads in the paper.

This is a paper that really does have some talented people in the newsroom and the sportsroom, and they are truly under-appreciated. It's too bad.

It is a 3-person staff, including SE, and they must share the layout duties 7 days per week, to say nothing of the online stuff they'll have to provide. The two staffers would be hourly, and the SE exempt, so expect those 60-hour weeks. And don't forget the 5-day furloughs CNHI threw on these staffers in the second quarter. This could be a great job in a Big 12 community, but ...

Sorry ... consider the hounds released.

 

[KUjhawk02]

Yikes ... but very insightful. To use a NASCAR term (something I'm embarrassed to be doing) ... the caution flag is out.

 

[Mark2010]

When I said 4-5 pages, I was thinking of a Sunday. Is that right? Or did you mean 2 or 2 1/2 on a Sunday?!?!