Waterloo-Cedar Falls (IA) Courier sports reporter/designer

[RapidCityPsycho]

NOTE: You'll want to act fast on this. ... Also, you'd be well served to be familiar with InDesign ...

Sports Reporter/Designer
The Courier, a 42,000 circulation daily/52,000 circulation Sunday newspaper, is looking for a full time sports reporter to help us continue providing award-winning sports news and features pages to our readers. We are looking for someone who can do it all ' design appealing pages to produce accurate, visually appealing, reader-friendly pages both on daily deadline and for advance sections and write intriguing game stories and features on sports-related topics of high interest to readers, shoot videos, write blogs, and edit stories.
This is your chance to excel as a design/layout person and reporter and help shape the sports news package that is relied upon by residents of Northeast Iowa. We give our team the freedom to stretch their skills and the support to refine their craft.
Requirements: A degree in journalism, design or related discipline or equivalent experience; knowledge and expertise in the use of InDesign or similar pagination program; an ability to edit copy for AP style, conciseness, accuracy and fairness; an ability to write enticing, accurate headlines
Please send your resume with references and a cover letter by applying www.wcfcourier.com and click on Courier Jobs under the Home Tab.


The Courier is a Drug Free Employer requiring pre-employment drug testing.
The Courier (www.wcfcourier.com) and Lee Enterprises (www.lee.net) are equal opportunity employers. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, sex, age, national origin or disability.

 

[RapidCityPsycho]

This is a nicer paper than you'd think, and a nicer town than you'd think.
Plus, from what I've seen they let all their sports staffers (7, I believe) cover a wide range of topics/teams.

 

[CarlSpackler]

The online application is the most asinine thing I've ever filled out. I sincerely hope its inventor dies 1,000 slow deaths. I hate when you can't just send in your clips. Stupid HR monkeys.

 

[BrianGriffin]

This is a nicer paper than you'd think, and a nicer town than you'd think.
Plus, from what I've seen they let all their sports staffers (7, I believe) cover a wide range of topics/teams.

It starts with Northern Iowa coverage. And UNI is a better beat than one would think at first glance. Good I-AA (FCS) football with very good fan support and it's had its moments in the Missouri Valley in basketball. I do think they also have an Iowa Hawkeyes beat.

The down side is you are a little south of the Minnesota border and it gets awful cold. I was up there (up to cover the game, not because I worked there) the year UNI had to play a football game at a high school stadium because their dome had not been repaired yet from when heavy snow caused it to collapse the previous winter.

 

[Lyman_Bostock]

Waterloo/Cedar Falls is nothing special. It's a pretty isolated place, unless you consider Cedar Rapids a bastion of culture.

But it could be worse. It could be Bismarck, I guess.

 

[steveu]

If you're a gambler, Isle of Capri just opened a big casino on the south edge of town by US 20.

If not, hey, the building looks nice from the highway.

 

[Lyman_Bostock]

If you're a gambler, Isle of Capri just opened a big casino on the south edge of town by US 20.

If not, hey, the building looks nice from the highway.

What is the law regarding gambling in Iowa? I thought they had to be on riverboats, which (I would think) means the Mississippi and Missouri. Waterloo ain't close to either.

 

[Chi City 81]

If you're a gambler, Isle of Capri just opened a big casino on the south edge of town by US 20.

If not, hey, the building looks nice from the highway.

What is the law regarding gambling in Iowa? I thought they had to be on riverboats, which (I would think) means the Mississippi and Missouri. Waterloo ain't close to either.

Nope. There's a Harrah's in Council Bluffs.

 

[Lyman_Bostock]

If you're a gambler, Isle of Capri just opened a big casino on the south edge of town by US 20.

If not, hey, the building looks nice from the highway.

What is the law regarding gambling in Iowa? I thought they had to be on riverboats, which (I would think) means the Mississippi and Missouri. Waterloo ain't close to either.

Nope. There's a Harrah's in Council Bluffs.

And Council Bluffs is on the Missouri River.

So why is there a big hotel/casino in Waterloo, which is nowhere near either major river? Is there a river that flows through Waterloo?

 

[Chi City 81]

If you're a gambler, Isle of Capri just opened a big casino on the south edge of town by US 20.

If not, hey, the building looks nice from the highway.

What is the law regarding gambling in Iowa? I thought they had to be on riverboats, which (I would think) means the Mississippi and Missouri. Waterloo ain't close to either.

Nope. There's a Harrah's in Council Bluffs.

And Council Bluffs is on the Missouri River.

So why is there a big hotel/casino in Waterloo, which is nowhere near either major river? Is there a river that flows through Waterloo?

Unless I'm mistaken, Harrah's ain't on a boat in Council Bluffs. To answer your other question, there is a body of water near Waterloo.

http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial&client=firefox-a&q=Waterloo,+IA,+USA&um=1&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&resnum=1&ct=image

 

[ServeItUp]

The Courier covers both Iowa State and Iowa. If you like wrestling, this would be a very good gig for you.

 

[wisportswriter]

The Courier shares its Hawkeyes coverage with the other Lee papers in the state, though. (W/CF, Quad Cities, Mason City, Sioux City) One writer for all.

From what I gather, this vacancy was created by a preps writer's exit. So another qualification will be that you must be able to write a good Dubuque writethru on the Wahlert-Cedar Falls football game this fall. (We have a sharing agreement.)

 

[JBHawkEye]

If you're a gambler, Isle of Capri just opened a big casino on the south edge of town by US 20.

If not, hey, the building looks nice from the highway.

What is the law regarding gambling in Iowa? I thought they had to be on riverboats, which (I would think) means the Mississippi and Missouri. Waterloo ain't close to either.

It doesn't have to be on a riverboat anymore.

The Waterloo casino is along the Cedar River, but it's a permanent structure.

Our casino here is in the middle of town. It is built on a man-made body of water (which isn't much).

Getting back to the Courier _ nice paper, great staff. They cover UNI and Iowa State, share Iowa coverage with the Quad City Times.

 

[steveu]

And I'll add my two cents besides the gambling... lol

The Courier is a good paper and the Waterloo market does have a lot to do in it for some people. Cedar Rapids and Iowa City within driving distance and Minneapolis, Des Moines and Omaha are several hours away.

 

[MC Courier]

The guy that left our department did primarily layout, but some of the beats and assignments will be restructured once we bring in a new person. There is a strong possibility the individual could cover Northern Iowa volleyball (a Top 35 to 40 program), Northern Iowa women's basketball and preps. There will be some desk work involved.

When fully staffed, our department is six full-timers and five to six part-timers. Because of that, each of the full-time members are required to do layout in some capacity and we have one part-timer who does the agate/scoreboard page on the weekends.

Northern Iowa football and men's basketball get a lot of ink, as we cover those teams religiously. With Ames being 90 minutes from the area, we do cover Iowa State football home and away. We also have given more attention to Iowa State hoops recently because UNI's former coach is now the head man there. We do staff most University of Iowa home football games, but we rely on our sister paper (The Quad-City Times) for coverage on the road.

We also staff the Division I, Division II and Division III national wrestling meets each year, and junior hockey -- the Waterloo Black Hawks -- is big here. They draw anywhere from 2,500 to 3,000 per night, and have been highly successful the past five years.

As is the case with most places, preps are significant. We cover around 40 to 45 high schools. We do a thorough job of covering high school football. On a lesser basis, we cover two Division III schools -- Wartburg and Luther, along with Division II Upper Iowa. We do a good job with these schools during football, but not as much during the other times of the year unless there is a reason to.

One other note that should be mentioned. We are an afternoon paper Monday through Friday, but publish Saturday and Sunday morning. For anyone with a family, it's not bad because you will have at least three or four nights a week free. Also, afternoons are typically open.

Typically, we're in the office from 5 or 6 a.m. to noon each weekday. On weekends, we come in around 4 and are out of here by midnight or 1 a.m. during football season.

If anybody has questions, feel free to ask. For those interested, I'd think they'll be taking resumes/clips for at least another two weeks or so.

 

[Editude]

Ah, the good old days of split shifts and long Fridays.

 

[wickedwritah]

For those who know nothing about Iowa (such as me)...geographically, how far is Waterloo from other big Midwest cities?

 

[Bubbler]

For those who know nothing about Iowa (such as me)...geographically, how far is Waterloo from other big Midwest cities?

It's probably equidistant from the Twin Cities and Chicago. The problem is unless you're going southeast (down I-380), you can't get there from anywhere. U.S. 20 is four-lane across Iowa, but I'm not sure if it is once it crosses into Illinois.

Good paper, some good guys work there. As mentioned, UNI is not a bad beat at all. Covering the Missouri Valley Conference keeps you busy.

 

[PTOWN]

Listening to MVC commish Doug Elgin pontificate every March as to why more teams didn't make the NCAA tourney may cause self-induced vomiting. You've been warned.

 

[Boom_70]

Waterloo/Cedar Falls is nothing special. It's a pretty isolated place, unless you consider Cedar Rapids a bastion of culture.

But it could be worse. It could be Bismarck, I guess.

Waterloo has a great water park.