Times of NW Indiana, Copy Editor/Enterprise Sports Writer

[Love_Sports]

The Times of Northwest Indiana, a 90,000+ circulation newspaper located 30 miles from the heart of Chicago is seeking a professional, experienced Copy Editor/Enterprise Sports Writer to join our team. Responsibilities include the review of written materials, editing them to adhere to standards for style, proper grammar and spelling and page proofing. You will be expected to produce compelling feature/enterprise stories and cover local prep and other game assignments.

The successful candidate will be a team player who has a solid knowledge of grammar and AP style, strong headline writing and proofreading skills, solid news judgment and is proficient with computers. We prefer individuals with writing and editing experience at a newspaper or through education experience. The ability to communicate well in person, over the phone and on the Internet is also a must. A bachelor's degree (B.A. or B.S.) from a four year college or university is strongly preferred.

Interested candidates are invited to apply online.

Apply Online: www.nwi.com/timesjobs

 

[Jeremy Goodwin]

Good paper and a good group of guys work there. The paper was a Top 10 daily APSE section last year, and I know they won a bunch of other APSE and state honors the past few years.

The paper does a good job of mixing coverage of Chicago pro sports, colleges in Indiana and dominating the local prep scene.

 

[MU_was_not_so_hard]

I've always been surprised that enterprise guys don't have job descriptions like this one.
A day or two a week on a desk could do wonders to help a guy like that know a little bit about every team. They'd immediately have a jumping off point as opposed to be the guy who swoops in from time to time.

 

[Pulitzer Wannabe]

I've always been surprised that enterprise guys don't have job descriptions like this one.
A day or two a week on a desk could do wonders to help a guy like that know a little bit about every team. They'd immediately have a jumping off point as opposed to be the guy who swoops in from time to time.

You're not going to find too many people qualified and in-demand enough to do an enterprise job who would also be willing to work desk shifts.

 

[JB20]

I, too, thought it was an interesting combination of jobs ... especially at a 90K circulation paper.

It seems to me an enterprise writer would be better covering a little bit of everything. It would help finding those enterprise ideas. Hard to do while reading AP copy, writing headlines and cutlines and sizing photos.

 

[WaylonJennings]

Enterprise = GA?

 

[Jeremy Goodwin]

I'm not sure of the size of the full-time staff, but I don't think it's as big as people might expect for a 90K circ. Hence the combo desk / reporting job. I was a correspondent (stringer) for them for a few months. There was at least one week where I covered three or four games and wrote a feature, and I know there were other correspondents who did the same.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

This will be the first job gone when cuts come...

 

[STLIrish]

This will be the first job gone when cuts come...

And it's probably the first one created by the last cuts, right? "Well, we're down a reporter, and a copy editor. Let's hire both, in the same person."

 

[Hank_Scorpio]

Is this the paper that fired someone for posting on SportsJournalists.com?

 

[accguy]

I agree that this is sort of weird. The people who I know who are good enterprise reporters and the people I know who are good copy editors are completely opposite animals.

I don't know anything about the job, but a red flag for me always goes up for any job that is something-slash-desk. I'd ask a lot of questions about how it works and what the percentages are. My fear is that as soon as somebody leaves or there are cuts, the enterprise part of the job is gone and they've chained your left leg to the desk.

 

[Buckeye12]

If it's simply reading and proofing copy that sounds very compativle. If it's building pages and paginating, that's an entirely different animal.

 

[wickedwritah]

If it's simply reading and proofing copy that sounds very compativle. If it's building pages and paginating, that's an entirely different animal.

I'd love a split job like that.

There are papers, mainly those who still have a separate Sunday staff (a few of those beasts are left), who still employ this setup -- report during the week, edit on deadline.

 

[fletch b. fletch]

I can tell you from experience that the combination enterprise/desk pretty much sucks. It sounds good. Maybe it will be for the first few months or so. Maybe they'll even tell you that you'll work 2 desk nights a week, and enterprise the other three days. But then a desk person will go on vacation and you'll have to work 4 desk nights for a few weeks. Or maybe one of them will leave and the company will take their sweet old time replacing that person, or they won't replace the person at all, and before you know it, you might get one day a week to work on enterprise. But because your staff is short-handed, you won't be working on enterprise that one day, you'll be covering a HS soccer game or filling in somewhere else.

Forgive me for sounding jaded, but like some other people said, when the job cuts come, the enterprise spot is the first to go. Or the job becomes mostly copy editing. I hope I'm wrong in this case. But I get the feeling I'm not.

 

[accguy]

Yep, Fletch. Those were pretty much my feelings.

 

[PTOWN]

I never understand what writers have agianst working desk shifts. At the places I've been the desk guys are the ones with something on the ball. And if you've got a good group, a night on the desk cracking jokes and talking sports is way more enjoybale than sitting on press row.

 

[playthrough]

I don't think that's where people are going, PTOWN. More concerns about 12-hour days trying to wear both hats. Those will burn you out very quickly.

 

[fletch b. fletch]

Don't get me wrong, I always enjoyed the people I worked with on the desk. And you're right, they are typically on the ball when it comes to sports. But a part of me also resented the hell out of the fact that I would have to edit the copy of a beat writer who couldn't put a coherent sentence together. It used to burn me up sometimes. Who knows, maybe the people on the copydesk at the paper I work at are saying the same thing about me.

Personally, I always preferred to write. I was grateful to finally get that chance, and I never want to give that up. I would assume that whoever wants to be an enterprise writer at the Times of NW Indiana would rather spend his or her time working on enterprise stories instead of spending 3-4 days a week working desk. Or, as Playthrough pointed out, working 12-hour days doing both.

 

[Prince of Persia]

I don't think that's where people are going, PTOWN. More concerns about 12-hour days trying to wear both hats. Those will burn you out very quickly.

Agreed. I can remember some days covering a 1 p.m. minor league baseball game, then going into the office to do the agate page. That's 5+ hours at the ballpark and 5+ hours in the office. And then they bitched and moaned when I had overtime on the time card.

 

[wickedwritah]

The thing that would concern me more than the fact that it's a split position is the fact that it's owned by Lee. If you want to pay a small fortune for your health insurance premiums, by all means, work for them.