Reporter -- Decatur, Ill.

I am a copy editor on the desk here, so feel free to pm me with any questions.

Herald & Review
Decatur, Illinois
Job Status: Full-time
Salary: Not Specified
Website: http://herald-review.com/sports

Description:
The Herald & Review is seeking an enthusiastic, innovative writer to help us keep up with an area rich in top sports programs, to develop sources and come away with more than just a game story. We cover more than 50 high schools. The person must also be versatile enough to hop over to cover colleges and general assignment work and perform copy editing duties once or twice a week.

Send resume and work samples to: Mike Albright, sports editor, Decatur Herald & Review, 601 E. William, Decatur, Ill., 62525 or email them to malbright@herald-review.com.

 

Anyone know how much Illini coverage is there? From the website, it looks like the executive sports editor handles all the Illinois stuff.

 

It's a Lee shop, that much I know... from my travels through the area it seems to be a pretty solid paper.

 

The Decatur Herald-Review does cover the Illini but that all goes to Mark Tupper, the sports editor, who's covered the beat for decades. This sounds like a high-school only gig, but it's a good paper in a sports-rich area between Springfirled, Peoria and Champaign. Just a short 2 1/2-3 hour drive to Chicago and an hour and a half or so from St. Louis.

 

I'm sure if you had a great sidebar idea or something like that you could get the occasional college story.

 

There's also a D-III college (Millikin) in town.

 

Meh, who gives a shit? (don't flame me, it's a personal joke)

 

They do high schools very well in Decatur. Not a fan of the city, but its a good paper. Most of the central Illinois papers are pretty good.

As a bonus, you can always stay at the Soy City Motel if you get an interview.

 

...and that city's smell does NOT come out easily.

 

See, it's shit like this that always pissed me off when I was in Decatur. And, I think it adds to Decatur's little-brother mentality.

Anyway, about the paper... it's a good staff that works their collective ass off. Don't know if things have changed, but when I left two years ago, the section was ridiculously big... 7 pages Weds-Saturday, upwards of 10 on Sunday, 5 on Monday-Tuesday... bigger than a lot of six-figure dailies. And I never got an answer on why that was the case.

So, that being said, space isn't an issue. You might have to bleed the wire dry to fill it, but your stuff won't get cut because of space concerns.

The job is almost all preps... and the scene there is very good. The two Decatur high schools are ineptly run from the top down, so their athletics are mostly a joke. But the small schools in Macon County produce state qualifiers on a yearly basis, and there are some good programs in the surrounding area as well.

You'll do some Millikin stuff... maybe a game or two. Millikin has been awful for the most part the last few years.

Don't hold your breath on Illini stories.

 

Wow, that'd really good space.