Gannett, Gatehouse talking merger

I was a finalist for an SID job at an NAIA school in Texas. It paid about the same as the position I took in journalism, but the hours were absolutely terrible and idk if they gave out overtime.

 

I'd agree with this, but it's not bulletproof. I'm friends-ish with the local SID at our D-I mid-major school, and they've lost 2 full-time positions in the last 5 years, as attendance has continued to drop and budgets get tighter. They are running with more and more work-study and grad student workers. He told me he expects to lose another FTE this summer because of the reduced NCAA nut that everyone is getting.

Definitely worth it if you have kids approaching college age and want to get them through with free tuition, but the tradeoff is sitting by the computer waiting for the West Coast softball tournament and golf scores to come trickling in on a Saturday night.

 

I am neither a working journalist nor an SID so I am only speculating. But has the SID position been eliminated at the said school? Have your colleagues or perhaps even your position been eliminated at a newspaper. Did the paper offer as good of retirement benefits or health insurance as the NAIA school? Has the NAIA school had furlough days?

 

At a Power Five school, sure. It gets hit and miss the lower down the ladder you go. Some FCS schools are great, from private schools that pour money into digital resources to large public schools that don't feel the need to jump to the American Conference or Mountain West.

And then others pay a pittance. And that's not addressing life on the road at D2 or D3 schools, either.

 

The SID at our D-I school asked my interest in taking the assistant SID spot when it came open. The salaried pay at the university was better, but I imagine the hourly breakdown when travel is factored in would make it worse. The school eventually cut the assistant position.

 

I was typing a response as you typed yours. I think your points are valid, particularly at a private school. But I was thinking about schools with good pension programs. Even a small public school you are probably eligible for the state pension plan.

I read these threads and see guys who have been let go a couple of times in their 50's and wonder what the hell they are going to retire on. If you can find a job with a pension grab it.

 

What happened to the assistant SID? Was he on the street or shuffled into another department?

 

He left for another job, the school never filled the position. They've increased usage of grad students, have some current students keep/run stats. The football/basketball PBP guy (fresh out of school also) handles some of the duties as well.

 

Obit story. Funny enough, about a paper now owned by GateHouse.

Back in college, I worked as a clerk at the local daily over Christmas break. I was jazzed. Among one of the tasks I had was obits. They were still free or at least still handled by the news side.

I'd interned the previous summer at a slightly smaller daily with a strict obit editor, and every time you didn't include the cause of death, she kicked it back to you. You had to find it out. Good training.

So we get an obit from a Florida funeral home for a guy who was born up here. Decent-sized obit, and at the end it says he died at the same time as his wife. Hmm. Interesting. Probably a car crash, I figure. I Googled to check it out. It was a murder-suicide and cops say he pulled the trigger. Big papers down there were all over it. I wrote that and the desk left it in.

The funeral home was not very happy when that obituary ran.

 

Which kind of circles back to my original point. I think while SID positions may go unfilled they are far less likely to see staffers leave involuntarily. And schools frequently have other positions they can move someone into.

Newspapers, however, appear to have no hesitation at throwing someone on the street in the middle of the worst economic downturn since the depression.

 

My paper gave me a free death notice when my dad died, otherwise I would've been out a fair chunk of change. The funeral home rolled the other we placed into the cost of the bill. That's when I found out how expensive funerals are. That is a recession-proof industry.

I would never want to be a D-2 or 3 SID, especially at a private school. There was a brief birth bump around 9/11, but folks in the field tell me the birth rate absolutely plummeted from then on. And most alums from the past 20 years are carrying around big-time student debt. A lot of small colleges that turned themselves into boutique-like schools are going down the drain.

 

The Globe has always covered Pittsburg this way. It's not a recent decision. In turn, I had to deal with TMS encroaching on my area especially during any playoffs.

Gatehouse has already closed one paper in the area (Carthage), there's word they're preparing to shut Neosho down and they gutted Miami (Okla.). It would not be surprising if they are about to gut Pittsburg. The town has not respected TMS for at least a decade. I don't doubt suits at the Globe know this but they're not waiting to jump into Pitt -- they're already there and have been for at least 30 years.

Pittsburg does have small mall and JCPenney is an anchor. Sears was downtown, then moved to a smaller location and is now gone.