Sports reporter, Beaumont Texas

found on JournalismJobs.com

Paper's website: http://BeaumontEnterprise.com

The reigning APME Texas Newspaper of the Year (30,000-125,000 circulation) seeks an energetic and adventurous sports reporter who has a web-first approach and can still come back with a fresh perspective for the print edition.

The Beaumont Enterprise, circulation 32,000, is the six-largest Hearst newspaper and third-largest in Texas. We’ve groomed journalists – especially in sports – for metro papers all over the country, including sister papers in Houston (90 miles west), San Antonio and San Francisco. The editor was sports editor of award-winning sections in Seattle and San Antonio and assistant sports editor in Dallas and Los Angeles. Our success is noted by the Associated Press Sports Editors. We have had a dozen top-10 APSE mentions in the past three years and were a top 10 Sunday and top 20 daily section in 2012. This is the job you need to get the job you’ll want.

High school football is the centerpiece of our operation. We frequently run sports stories and features on 1A, and our Friday and Saturday editions are loaded with special high school coverage. High school football games in Southeast Texas can draw close to 10,000 fans. This area also produces professional athletes – Jamaal Charles of the Kansas City Chiefs, Jay Bruce of the Cincinnati Reds and Kendrick Perkins of the Oklahoma City Thunder, among others.

Lamar University is the main university in Beaumont. The men's basketball team, now under the direction of Pat Knight, reached the NCAA tournament in 2011, and the school revived its football program in 2010 after cutting it in 1989. We staff most home and away games for football and basketball, but we don't always do things the traditional way.

Send a cover letter, including your sports coverage philosophy and links to no more than four work samples, a resume and references to Ashley Sanders, Managing Editor, The Beaumont Enterprise, at arsanders@hearstnp.com, with the subject line SPORTS REPORTER: (your name).

 

Beaumont's had a lot of sports openings in the last year. Anyone know what's going on? Also, who's the sports editor there now?

 

My guess is one of the reporters moved up to editor. Anyone have pipeline info to share?

 

Not sure what's going on over there. They were looking for a sports ed a few months ago, so maybe it was an in-house promotion. The website lists three people as sports reporters but no one as sports ed. Perhaps they decided to do an in-house promotion but are waiting to hire a replacement for the reporter who will move into the editor's spot.

 

They had a shakeup when Jon Styf departed, and then moved about after Chris Dabe took a job in Central Wisconsin, closer to home IIRC.

Listed staff is pretty young, so if they promoted from within, it's a young guy. None have been there since before August 2010, and all there went there out of school.

Under Styf they were an APSE powerhouse. Don't know much about their setup since then.

 

Hello all, I am one of the sports reporters currently at the Enterprise. A hire has not been made at sports editor. Currently, somebody from within is filling in as an interim sports ed. The sports reporter opening has come about because Jared Ainsworth, who was with the paper since 2010, is moving on to a teaching job. This leaves myself and one other sports reporter. Hope this clears things up.

 

Do you know if they're going to get around to hiring a sports ed, or will they just leave things as they are?

 

The search to find a sports editor is ongoing

 

any word on this one? Seems like time is running out to have a full staff by football season.

 

Nah. Three times I have started jobs in either August or September. If you're a tiny staff, it might make a difference. At a larger place, you have enough people to carry you until you can get your feet underneath you. It would certainly be preferable to have the roster set by the end of July, but experience shows me it's not going to create a sense of urgency with management and the bean-counters.

 

The staff there is smaller than you probably think (two sports reporters, as noted earlier in the thread, unless that's changed). I'd call that a tiny staff, unless your standard for "tiny" is "one."

But yeah, my guess is it's about saving money. They'll go as long as they can without, to save a few months' salary and benefits.

I posted this three years ago:

I interviewed there in spring 2009 and was told it would be a few weeks before they decided who to hire. About a month later I e-mailed the managing editor, who had contacted me to see if I was interesting in applying, and in an e-mail reply I was told there were delays in the hiring process and it might be a few more weeks.

A month later, I learned they'd hired someone. I gave them a week or so to get back to me to let me know, figuring surely they'd at least tell the people who interviewed in person. When that week passed, I wrote to the ME and asked if what I'd heard was true. Yes, it's true, was the answer. I didn't get a good answer as to why they never bothered to tell the finalists the position had finally been filled.

Was also told they had to revise their search and couldn't afford to hire someone with my experience, so they went with someone pretty much straight out of college (a friend of the child of a Houston Chronicle staffer, I was later told).

Never got reimbursed for my mileage for driving to Beaumont, despite having to fill out forms the day I interviewed "in case we need to cut you a check for any expenses."

The conclusion I came to so I could move on without being bitter: Good people in a bad situation.

The ME is different now, by the way. Tim Kelly is still listed as the editor.

 

We are looking to have three sports writers in time for football season. Applications are already being looked at by the ME. The sports editor position has been filled. Also, Tim Kelly is fantastic to work for.