Sports Editor, Rockdale/Newton, Georgia

http://www.gapress.org/jobbank.html

The Rockdale Citizen and Newton Citizen are seeking a talented, hard-working sports editor to oversee local sports coverage in Rockdale and Newton counties. The successful candidate will be able to cover sports events, write features and direct a team of two full-time sports writers, with an emphasis on local sports at all levels. Journalism or related degree required, along with at least five years of experience. Must understand the importance of deadlines and have an outstanding command of English, including grammar, spelling and knowledge of AP style. Interested candidates should contact Editor/Publisher Alice Queen via e-mail at alice.queen@rockdalecitizen.com.
No phone calls please.

This is two counties east of Atlanta. Both papers are daily. My guess is the sports coverage is preps, preps and more preps, but it's only a guess, and I don't think I'm far off base to say that, like most of the metro papers around Atlanta, the college and pro coverage is left to the wire.

 

Anyone know anything about this area/job?

 

Last I knew, and this was a few years ago, they had insanely early deadlines and a not particularly good product. Pretty sure it's printed in Gwinnett. I always thought it was all preps, but it looks like they cover a JC, as well.

And for some reason, Furman Bisher is writing columns for them. Which they describe as occurring on a "periodical" basis. Oy.

 

The preps are decent out this way, but nothing great. It was better recently with Rockdale's Kevin Ware, a major D-1 basketball prospect. One of his teammates is pretty good too, I think. Football's mediocre.

The paper's nothing incredible, but they do have at least one AJC preps castoff on staff over there. He does good work. I'd guess they pay pretty standard crap rates for this size of a paper. And you won't be living in the city. The paper office and most of Rockdale County is too far outside the perimeter to live in Atlanta.

 

Conyers is off of I20 and about 15 miles of the east perimeter. Athens is about 30-45 mins away. It's been growing out that way for awhile now, but not the afluent type of growth like north ATL.

The main competition is the Covington News in Newton Co. They suck.

The preps are OK. Nothing too great, but decent teams.

There are your usual fare of eateries and movies, but for real good stuff, make the trip inside the perimeter.

 

Knowing nothing about the work environment, I can say that the quality of life stuff is there to be had. You want culture or big-time sports? Atlanta is close and so is Athens, as bydesign77 mentioned, and Augusta is a shade over two hours away. Beach is about four. Mountains, maybe an hour and a half. Weather? Hot and humid in the summer. Winters are a mixed bag, but you're not likely to see much snow. If you fish, Lake Oconee's not far away.

If they're one of those papers that has a 6 o'clock deadline -- and I don't know that they are -- well, it is what it is. You won't write live gamers, and the emphasis will be on more featury stuff. It's a question worth asking, though.

 

The section is produced in Gwinnett, but the pictures and stories are sent from Rockdale to the pagination folks.
The quality varies depending on the time they have to write after events, and in the past the picture quality has been spotty at best, but that was a few years ago, might be better now.
Most all of the people at Rockdale are pretty good folks, or were when I knew them a few years ago. There are some early deadlines with a little stretching on Friday nights during football season.
The pay will be what the pay will be and like someone else said the area is what you make of it.
Good sports, not great, but good and with all those high schools plenty to cover virtually every day and just tons of community stuff as well.
The remote pagination is a bit of a pain, as I was on the other end of it at Gwinnett before my services were no longer needed, however I hold no ill will toward the folks at Rockdale, just understand what you will be doing before taking the job.