Sports Reporter, Fayetteville, AR.

I know cost-of-living was alluded to earlier, but the ad says salary is in the 25-30 K range? How does that bode for Fayetteville?

 

You'll be fine.

If you're single you can get a rental in Fayetteville at a very reasonable price with unlimited availability. If you're married you'll get a nice house in the mid $100's, and with Wal-Mart Headquarters there, most spouse-types will have no problems.

I cut my teeth at this paper and the sister paper 60 miles to the south. This is a great opening in a fine place to live. If I didn't love it where I'm at, there's a decent chance I'd be back in Northwest Arkansas working for Chip Souza (the SE there) ....

 

Also, there's lots of little towns round and about the area that are much cheaper than the bigger cities if you so prefer. The living is much more affordable there, and the neighborhoods are nice. If you've got a family, especially with a kid, you really can't go wrong. For a rapidly-growing area, things are still pretty affordable, and this paper pays reasonably well. If you find yourself moving into a one-bedroom efficiency, it's likely you just have yourself to blame.

 

Now that the deadline has passed to get clips/resumes in, anybody know of anything new on this one? Anybody heard from Mr. Souza? Any clues as to what, exactly, they're looking for?

 

Pure speculation here, but I would imagine they'd like to start whittling the stack down ASAP. It's getting to be football tab time in that neck of the woods, and I'm sure they'd like to go in with a full staff.

They'd need to get someone in for purposes of preps, I'd imagine, more than anything. I'm not sure who covers what, but there are five big schools covered by the paper, and they cover them almost the way a college writer would cover a beat. The sooner they plug someone in to that aspect, the better.

And on that note: This is a great job for anyone looking to get some experience and move up. But understand that the preps portion of the job is not to be poo-pooed. This paper takes preps seriously, and if you go into it with the right attitude and a measure of enthusiasm, you'll get a positive experience.

 

To add a bit more.

Fayettenam is you stereotypical college town in many ways. Not all college students have rich parents who can pay big monthly rent bills. So, there are many affordable places in town. Grocery stores are never far away. There are plenty of parks and playgrounds, too. And if you lack for something to do in a college town, it ain't the town's fault.

- NW Arkansas has four seasons. It'll snow a few days every year in Jan. or Feb. And it'll will be unbearably hot a few days in August.
- Even with the UofA there, the area lacked diversity when I was in college (early 90s). Wally World (Wal-Mart for you non-southerners), Tyson, JB Hunt and the UofA have done some good things as far as making the area more diverse. It's still not great, but it's getting better.
- Prep sports is a huge deal there. A few years back the Democrat-Gazette put a bureau in NWA to be closer the big businesses. The paper also increased its prep sports staff specifically for that area. It even sent one of its best assistant sports editors there to run the NWA staff. The amount of folks covering the Hawgs' various teams increase, too. But, the smaller papers didn't have prep's competition from the DemGaz before. It's big-time competition now. I was back for a reunion recently and found out that there are several high schools being built in the area, too. So, even more stuff to cover.

You young bucks shouldn't sleep on this gig.

MFB

 

Received the mass rejection e-mail form Mr. Souza today. Actually I thought it was very classy that he took the time to write a fairly lenthy e-mail. It could have just been the custumary no response. I know they were supposed to conduct phone interviews Thursday, and wanted to have a firm candidate by the end of the week. Good luck to those that made the cut.

 

i'd be willing to bet one wouldn't.

 

From what I hear, it would have been classier if he had put the e-mail addresses in the "BCC" field so everyone and their brother didn't know who applied for the gig. Just sayin'.

 

Yeesh. One of the first things they should teach people when they get Outlook or any other e-mail program is the proper way to send a mass e-mail. The Bcc, when used properly, is a great feature. It can also be abused if used the wrong way - not that any of you would.

BTW, Bcc is blank carbon copy, which means the person in the "To:" field will not see the Bcc person's name and won't know you're sending a copy to that person. Use it wisely.

 

I wouldn't be real thrilled if I were one of the applicants.

 

I didn't see it as that big of deal because I don't care who knows if I'm applying for the position, but I do see you're guys point. For me though, it didn't really matter.