Sports Writer — The Messenger, Madisonville, KY

The Messenger, an award-winning daily newspaper located in Madisonville, KY, has an opening for a sports writer.

The successful candidate will have the ability to quickly turn around gamers while also writing interesting advances and feature stories. The coverage area includes two counties with four high schools that compete in a number of sports, including football, basketball, baseball, softball, soccer, volleyball, track and field, cross country, swimming and archery.

The ability to produce outdoors material is a plus.

Proficiency in the use of Apple computers, Photoshop and social media such as Facebook and Twitter is required. Messenger sports reporters also take photos of events and process them for publication.

The two-person sports staff has no layout responsibilities.

The Messenger is a six-day daily Paxton Media newspaper. The paper won the 2012 and 2013 Kentucky Press Association's General Excellence Awards and is routinely ranked among the top publications in its division.

The sports writers work five-day, 40-hour weeks with an alternating Saturday schedule.

Madisonville is centrally located in western Kentucky near the beautiful lakes region. It is one hour and a half northwest of Nashville and is an excellent jumping off point to a number of larger midwestern and southern cities such as Louisville, Lexington, Indianapolis, Cincinnati and St. Louis.

The Messenger offers a competitive salary with health benefits and a 401(k) plan.

Send cover letter, resume and clips to Don Perryman, managing editor, at dperryman@the-messenger.com.

Please, no phone calls.

 

This sounds like an interesting job especially since there are NO layout responsibilities.

 

Things have changed at the Messenger since I worked in the shop. At the time, the Messenger had two staff photogs, and two very good ones at that. SE did the layout. I don't know how Friday night football shakes down now, but it was vital then to do write-thru at halftime, in order to get the stories finished and pages shipped to Owensboro.

 

This is a great starter job in the industry. The past few sports reporters have gone on to bigger papers and better opportunities. The other current writer has a plethora of experience and can help you hit the ground running. The community and coaches for the most part are very respectful. Pay isn't the greatest, but cost of living is cheap in Madisonville.

 

This job is still open.

 

Seems like just about every newspaper is *award-winning* in one way or another these days.

 

One third-place state award is all any paper needs to slap that on a job ad.

 

From the ad: The paper won the 2012 and 2013 Kentucky Press Association's General Excellence Awards ...

The position is still open.

 

I just wanted to drop a quick note on this position and say that it is still open. I am currently the other sportswriter for The Messenger and only have positive things to say about the job and the work environment. I’ve worked in newsrooms across several state during the past decade and have seen the good, bad and ugly of this profession -- and there’s a lot about The Messenger that works in this community, which absolutely loves it’s hometown sports coverage.

One of the biggest things this position has going for it is the freedom and flexibility you have to be as creative and ambitious as you want. Do you want to build clips for your resume? This is the place to do it. There’s a wealth of stories in this community just waiting to be written. And in this job you get the chance to write. You have minimal desk work and no pagination, so if you are eager to prove yourself as a sportswriter, this is your chance. This can be a writer’s sports section -- one that doesn’t have strict inch counts and one that gives you the space and opportunity to grow. In my opinion, it’s the perfect job for somebody looking to move from a weekly to a daily or for a recent college grad.

If you have any questions about the position or the town, shoot me an email at jmillikan@the-messenger.com.

 

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