ASE, Cape Girardeau, MO

Anyone know anything about this one?


The Southeast Missourian (named 2006 Newspaper of the Year by Suburban Newspapers of America) in Cape Girardeau, Mo., is seeking a leader to produce a first-rate sports section. The ASE will direct the day-to-day operations of a seven-day-a-week sports section and lead a staff of three full-time sports reporters plus part-time sports clerks. The ASE also will work with the sports editor to coordinate print and Web content (see semissourian.com and semoball.com). The Southeast Missourian covers 21 high schools and Division I-AA Southeast Missouri State University. A premium is placed on enterprise stories and breaking news. Send a cover letter, resume, references and samples of page design and sportswriting to Toby Carrig, Sports Editor, Southeast Missourian, P.O. Box 699, Cape Girardeau, Mo. 63702, or e-mail tcarrig@semissourian.com.

 

While I don't know much about the position or Toby Carrig, my family's from that town. My grandfather lived two blocks away from the university for most of his life and worked in the paper's business office for pretty much the entire time (apprentice, then accountant). Other relatives also have worked there in a variety of capacities and have loved it.

I recently applied for a crime/courts reporting position at the paper and was turned down (that's alright though, I kind of knew I wasn't ready for it). I'm also not ready for an ASE position either, but if it were a sports reporter position, I'd jump feet first.

Cape Girardeau is a great town - Southeast Missouri State provides a great source of both sports and entertainment. The paper is high quality, with a daily top-notch effort and layout. Without knowing them, these guys seem serious about putting together a high quality sports section.

One of the things I've started doing is requesting a copy of the entire newspaper when I'm applying for a job. Usually I call the circulation desk and they ring it up for a few dollars - sometimes they'll send it for free when I tell them why I want it. I suggest you all do the same - it will make you more comfortable while you do submit you application material.

Living? There's good and bad parts, but it's almost all affordable on the salary (I think the ad said $30-35K) the paper offers. The town is growing, but there are still green places. I'd love to return to the area myself - I'm less than 3 hours away now - but alas, I have not the experience and might be taking a job more than 2,000 miles away.

 

$30-$35K seems pretty high for the Cape.

 

The entire post on jjobs includes a salary range. The person would have quite a job to do, but the money wouldn't be a problem living in the area.

Company: Southeast Missourian
Position: Assistant Sports Editor
Location: Cape Girardeau, Missouri
Job Status: Full-time
Salary: $30,000 to $35,000
Ad Expires: February 14, 2007
Job ID: 722993
Website: http://semissourian.com


Description:
The Southeast Missourian (named 2006 Newspaper of the Year by Suburban Newspapers of America) in Cape Girardeau, Mo., is seeking a leader to produce a first-rate sports section. The ASE will direct the day-to-day operations of a seven-day-a-week sports section and lead a staff of three full-time sports reporters plus part-time sports clerks. The ASE also will work with the sports editor to coordinate print and Web content (see semissourian.com and semoball.com). The Southeast Missourian covers 21 high schools and Division I-AA Southeast Missouri State University. A premium is placed on enterprise stories and breaking news. Send a cover letter, resume, references and samples of page design and sportswriting to Toby Carrig, Sports Editor, Southeast Missourian, P.O. Box 699, Cape Girardeau, Mo. 63702, or e-mail tcarrig@semissourian.com.

 

What do you mean the person would have quite a job to do? Outside of typical ASE duties?

 

"quite a job" = nothing but good things. As I've already written, I don't know anything about the paper's sports department, just a bit about the area. Great sports section (in my humble opinion).

 

Job opening in Cape, job opening in Paducah ... if something came open in Carbondale, we'd have the entire four-state market covered.

 

Perhaps I can clarify the situation as far as the duties and compensation.

Our company in October started a regional Web site (semoball.com) with content from our five newspapers in addition to blogs (blogs!), video, photo galleries and eventually statistics. The person who was instrumental in getting that project off the ground has moved on to other things.

I am going to be charged with managing and developing content for our Web site and increasing the profile of the site with some projects and crossover material for print.

Thus, the ASE will be taking a lot of the night-to-night responsibilities for the sports section. That includes some writing, editing, design, management of our three full-timers. Ideally, we would like to bring aboard someone who knows what it takes to put together a first-rate sports section with an eye on community journalism as well as enterprise and hard-hitting journalism. In the course of a week, you might design a dozen pages, cover a high school game, write a feature on a youth league team and keep in touch with sources on a pending lawsuit or news of that nature. There is some flexibility in the writing-design ratio based on the candidates' strengths but some of both certainly is expected.

We have a market with television and radio, so there is some competition in keeping on top of coaching changes and developments at Southeast Missouri State.

Our newspaper has a good stylebook in place that keeps the design clean. You can let it do the work for you and come up with clean pages or use it as a starting point to produce great pages. Our editing/design package is InCopy/InDesign.

I believe the compensation is fair for our expectations at a paper of this size (17,000 daily/23,000 Sunday). If you can run the show, you'll have the room to do so while I learn the intricacies of editing video and work on a few other Web projects. You'll work hard, have fun, hopefully learn a trick or two but also be able to implement your ideas and set your goals for the section.

I will gladly mail a copy of our newspaper to serious candidates and answer any questions someone may have about Cape Girardeau or the newspaper. My e-mail address is in our ads on the APSE Web site and journalismjobs.

(I'll go fetch the drinks now.)

Toby Carrig
Sports editor
Southeast Missourian

 

Used to be a fantastic ribs place right across the bridge in Illinois. Is it still there?

 

There's a fantastic bar in which to get stabbed/shot.

 

I'm not familiar with the section, but I know Toby, and he'll be a great person to work for.

 

Toby's transparency of purpose is refreshing: He describes what the actual duties would be. That alone would make it worthwhile for those with appropriate experience and goals to fire off a resume.