Baseball beat writer/Springfield, MO

From journalismjobs.com:

The News-Leader Media Group in Springfield, Mo., is looking for a sports journalist to cover affiliated minor-league baseball and small college sports for our online and print publications.

We are a community-focused media company creating deep local sports content for several Web sites and a mobile site, a daily and Sunday newspaper, weekly newspapers and glossy magazines.

We are looking for candidates with three to four years experience covering professional baseball for professional media organizations in print and/or online. We are unique in our approach to covering the Springfield Cardinals, the Double-A affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals. Although we cover home games with a story and notebook, we know that winning and losing in the Texas League isn’t as important as developing big-league talent. So our emphasis is on following players doing well at Low-A Quad Cities and High-A Palm Beach that may be promoted to the Springfield roster and beyond. We’re also looking at skills Springfield players are trying to fine-tune so they can move up to Triple-A Memphis or St. Louis. Where can this job lead if you do it right? Baseball America just hired our beat writer away.

Outside of baseball season, this journalist covers six small area colleges, including Drury University, Evangel University, Southwest Baptist University and College of the Ozarks.

To be considered, you MUST have the experience noted above and a track record of breaking news for the print and web; can deliver enterprise beyond the stadium by digging deeper to give fans a fuller picture of what goes on behind the scenes; can separate the prospects from the players filling the roster; and can explain the trends affecting pro baseball.

You must also be able to work in a fast-paced environment and work closely with reporting and editing teams under challenging time constraints.

We’re a Gannett media company and at the forefront of developing content for multiple print and online platforms. We’re reinventing our newsroom, so you’ll need to be energized by innovation and change. You will be creating multimedia content – including audio clips, podcasts, videos, photos and photo galleries – and you’ll interact with our readers/users through blogs, online forums and beat advisory groups.

Up for the challenge? Send your cover letter, resume and five digital work samples that include examples of enterprise reporting to Don Wyatt, executive editor, at dwyatt@gannett.com.

We have competitive salaries, a 401(k), and health and education benefits. For its size, the News-Leader Media Group has one of the most diverse newsrooms in the country. We embrace diversity and all the benefits that it brings.

Springfield is in southwest Missouri and the third largest city in the state. It’s an easy drive to Kansas City, St. Louis and Tulsa, Okla. The area is home to Missouri State University and several private universities and colleges. It is a regional health care center with two large systems. Branson, a national live entertainment and leisure destination, is nearby. The region boasts a highly diversified economy and is annually rated one of the best places in the country for families with children, entrepreneurs and small businesses. It’s also among the most affordable places to live. In addition to the Cardinals, our sports landscape includes excellent outdoor activities. We’re in the heart of the Ozarks mountain region, which has an international reputation for world-class hunting, fishing and water sports such as canoeing and kayaking.

Check us out on the Web at www.news-leader.com

 

Interesting approach to the beat, but this shop seems determined to be more exact and, it seems to me, unwelcoming with its job listings than necessary.

 

Enterprise reporting on a minor league baseball beat? This might be the only shop in the country attempting this.

Our minor league teams are (wrongly) given a boxscore and little else.

 

They certainly appear to know what they want. Good for them. I guess.
It does exclude, I expect, many very talented candidates who don't happen to have worked in a minor or major league market who may know baseball extremely well.

 

bookmark.

 

If they are a stepping stone to Baseball America, wouldn't that indicate an very low salary for someone with 3-4 years specifically on a baseball beat?

 

Considering it's Gannett, likely. Drury is one of the top D2 colleges in the nation, however, so you'd get to see some pretty decent college athletics outside of baseball season.

 

Then you're the one covering minor-league baseball the wrong way, not them.

To me, enterprise is the ONLY way to cover minor-league baseball. There are a million and a half enterprise ideas that can be developed off a minor-league beat, and every one of them are far more interesting to readers than last night's game.

 

It really depends on the market how you cover the minor league team. In a place like Springfield, where most of the residents are St. Louis Cardinals fans, the people probably have a little interest in how the local team is doing and will get a little excited if they win their league. So you go to have decent game coverage. But they are probably more interested in where these players fit in the organization as a whole, so you've got to really focus on that stuff.

There are places where the locals really take a lot of pride in their minor league team. They want to see those boys win and the game stories matter more. There are also places where the locals don't really care about team or the organization because the big club is located 2,000 miles away. Then it gets challenging to figure out what to write about because the people really only care about spending a nice evening at the ballpark.

 

Anyone know where Kary Booher is going???

 

Didn't read the job ad, eh?