Sports Writer, La Salle, IL

North Central Illinois PM daily specializing in prep coverage seeks a qualified sports writer to join our staff. If it's high-school related, we cover it. Solid writing skills, with the ability to find angles that don't show up in a box score, required. Feature writing and column writing will be necessary. Weekly layout shifts required; previous Quark experience desired. Occasional opportunities to cover professional sports are available. Please send cover letter, resume and work samples to Linda Kleczewski, 426 Second Street, La Salle, IL 61301. Please no faxes or e-mail.

 

This daily newspaper is located in my own backyard. I used to be a stringer for them. But since I don't have a four-year degree, they refuse return my phone calls ... let alone ... to hire me. Nevermind that I have 10 years of sports writing experience at larger daily newspapers than La Salle and have won state awards for sports section design. Meanwhile, the NewsTribune never seems to win ANYTHING at awards time.

From what I have seen, this newspaper likes hiring college grads with NO EXPERIENCE so that they can train them (or manipulate them) any way they want and pay them SUB-HUMAN wages.

 

jla74m: Good enough for the La Salle News Tribune

 

JL, I take that to mean they didn't win any awards because they've never hired you ....

 

Then just get your degree and take over the place.

 

Does anybody know who left this paper? Was it Erik Hall?

 

Don't worry about them hiring you. If you work for a much larger paper, you're likely making more money now than you could at the smaller paper. It's good for you that they didn't return your calls.

 

I used to man this position (not recently, but a few years back). The stringers we worked with were barely literate, so take that for what it's worth ...

You're going to work your ass off, deal with some douchebags, get frustrated at times and won't get rich while employed there. So it's probably like every other sportswriting job out there. But Linda is good people.

You'll have the room and the freedom to put together some amazing clips. They cover (or at least covered) the shit out of a group of high schools and a JUCO, and you get a lot of opportunity to cover big-time stuff. They get season credentials to Bears and Illinois football, you can cover Illinois basketball, Cubs and White Sox, Bulls and Blackhawks when the schedule allows it, plus the PGA Tour events in the extended area.

You'll basically get out of it what you put into it ... like a college degree.

PM me if you have questions.

 

Most of the full-timers hired by The NewsTribune hail from the Chicagoland area, which means they don't know their a$$ from a hole in the ground. They're the kind of people who think civilization stops at the end of the southwest suburbs. Idiots!

 

Hard to believe they wouldn't return your phone calls.

 

No shit.