Sports writer, Martinsville, Va.

Found this on JournalismJobs.com ...

Company: Martinsville Bulletin
Position: Wanted Sportswriter
Location: Martinsville, Virginia
Job Status: Full-time
Salary: Not Specified
Ad Expires: August 19, 2006
Job ID: 252969
Website: http://martinsvillebulletin.com
Description:
Wanted: Sportswriter/desk staffer to join three-person sports department at 20,000 a.m. in Southside Virginia. Successful candidate will cover preps and other local sports, including Martinsville Speedway's two Nextel Cup races each year; edit copy and paginate with Quark XPress. Send resume and clips to Ginny Wray, editor, Martinsville Bulletin, P.O. Box 3711, Martinsville, Va. 24115; fax 276-638-7409; email (.txt ) only files to ginnywray@hotmail.com

 

Where to start on this one, considering we've talked about this paper a lot.

How about here:

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/27519/

 

Here we go again ...

 

This newspaper is a prime example of everything that is wrong with journalism.

Shitty pay, shitty city, constant turnover, yet management changes nothing. Every position is a hodgepodge of every task imaginable.

The method for laying out a page here (at least at one time): Draw the widest box possible. Flow a story into it. Then just keep stairstepping downward, going around ads as necessary.

 

Whereever that previous ad (the "unknown" ad) came from, it wasn't from Martinsville ... that comes from someone who is there (and is actually happier there than at a previous job with an MG paper) ...

According to my insider, Martinsville's sports editor has given notice and the management there is going to promote one of the staffers to the job ... the ad will be to fill that soon-to-be vacant position ...

 

Hmmm ... then I have no bloody clue where in Virginia that unknown job is, and I know the Va. papers pretty well. Huh.

If you don't like the SE or the weather in Martinsville, just wait 15 minutes and it'll change.

Moody still lists this as a D bond.

 

I was an SE at another paper in Southside VA and had to deal with at least three different SEs at the Bulletin during my two-year tenure. I wonder how many they've had in the four years since I left.

 

I think Roswell and Martinsville are the two openest jobs in the country. Every few weeks months the job opens up.

 

Honestly, I think you were right the first time.

 

I thought the cuirrent SE had just started. That place is such a mess and the biggest reason is the person in charge of the newsroom.

 

Apparently the current SE has been there a few years (I think he started there as a sports writer, and wound up SE through attrition), but feels that it's time to move on ...

 

So then general thoughts on this are bad, bad, bad?