Assistant Sports Editor,Trenton, N.J.

That may be true when comparing the papers on whole. But the sports sections are competitive, and particularly on high schools and local colleges the Trentonian may have a slight edge. The Times recently bought out the bulk of its local sports crew and the Trentonian now has a large advantage in experience and manpower. Also, due to its printing agreement with the Star Ledger, the Times has had to adapt to insanely early deadlines, 9 p.m. give or take a few minutes, and some 7 p.m. basketball games haven't been getting in.

Where the Times makes up ground is in its pro beat coverage and online product.

 

It's hard to recommend a stint at The Trentonian; this is Bob's hometown paper, after all, and the horror stories are as bad or worse than you have heard.

If Jelenic were gone, this would actually be a pretty good opportunity for a young, hard-working/masochistic assistant sports editor to really make his mark. As mentioned, it's in perhaps the busiest sports market in America: You have up to 13 major-league teams to cover, minor league baseball and hockey franchises, Rutgers and Princeton, etc.

A lot of very talented people made their bones at the Trentonian over the past 15-20 years and now are key players at such papers as the Star-Ledger (D'Amico) and LA Times (Atsales). There was once a cadre of ex-Trentonian guys at the LADN, and, of course, there are a dozen or more at the NY Daily News and the Post.

 

Do they cover any of the NYC pro teams, or are they all Philly?

 

It was more the idea of the paper bragging it was the most exciting tab. I was thinking that they were the only tab, but then I remembered that the Jersey Journal switched to tab format a few years ago.

 

The only major pro team they staff themselves is the Giants, and only then on a part-time basis (home games, some practices, etc).

Their Philly pro stuff comes from the Delaware County Daily Times (Eagles, Phillies, Flyers) and the West Chester Daily Local (76ers, and also Penn State football), which are part of JRC's Philly cluster. Those papers staff all home games and all but a handful of road games (such as west coast games).

They used to get some Yankees and Mets coverage from the New Haven Register, but now all of their NY stuff (except the Giants) comes from the AP.

Swamps, what you described about the Trentonian vis a vis the Times should be correct, but it sadly isn't. In fact, if anything, things have gotten worse, as if Jelenic & friends thought that the Times' downsizing was somehow a validation of their way of doing business.

In the last 2 years, the sports department alone has lost two full-time writers, three full-time page designers, a sports editor, and a full-time photographer. As of now, none of those seven positions have been filled (though at least one is expected to be next month). They used to have one of their full-time writers cover Rutgers and another cover Princeton. Now both are handled by a stringer.

 

I forgot about New Haven covering the NYC teams.

 

Since The Times did the buyouts and outsourced its high school sports results gathering/preview writing/all-star team naming to the Dorf Feature Service (aka The Star Ledger Schools Department), they only have one member of the schools staff left, the rest of the schools staff is stringers (except for the scholastic editor - who has to work the sports copy desk).
So the Trentonian has an advantage in manpower and experience. Manpower is key especially since they can still gather results in the office while The Times has to hope that Dorf gets the results - instead of having its own staffers that know the coaches to track down results.