Sports Reporter - Greenfield, IN

JournalismJobs.com - Job Listing - Sports reporter

Date Posted July 27, 2015
Location Greenfield, Indiana
Position Reporter
Specialty Sports/Outdoors
Job Status Full-time
Salary Not Specified

Description:
The (Greenfield) Daily Reporter, an award-wining newspaper near Indianapolis, is seeking an energetic sports writer who has the drive and skills to handle a variety of beats, including high school, recreational and other sports. Candidate should be able to produce strong, well-written in-depth sports features and enterprise pieces and daily stories, including high school sports. Looking for a leader who can run with stories and come up with original story ideas that connect with readers. Social media skills a plus. Previous newspaper reporting experience preferred. Send resume and clips to: ssyse@hnenewspapers.com.

 

My former shop. Has some good points and some areas where you want to come in with eyes wide open ... it's a two-man staff, design was taken off-site a few months ago so it's all a reporting gig. You cover 4 high schools, three of which are between 1100-1500 students (big 3A/small 4A in basketball) and one of which is a rural school w/450 students. Coaches are really good to work with, and with one exception, the communities are pretty supportive. It's a *big* baseball/softball area. Football is strong, too - two of the high schools have played in the state football finals in the last couple of years. They have, in the past, covered the Colts/Pacers/Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but that seems to be going away.

The good:
*-The SE, Rich Torres, is top-notch. He's fairly new at this publication, but he's been around Central Indiana for a long time. He would be a great person to work with/for. If he's allowed to do his job, this will be a great place to work.
*-It's been a stepping-stone job. Within the last 20 years, three people have gone from this job to the Indy Star, two in the last five years. There are a lot of alumni from this paper's sports staff working at major public relations and newspaper jobs.
*-It's in suburban Indy, but it doesn't feel like a big city. It really has a small-town feel but the newspaper is only 25 miles from downtown Indianapolis. As I said before, it used to offer a really good opportunity to get a chance to cover some NFL/NBA stuff (and therefore provide valuable networking opportunities), but the new group editor appears to be nixing that, and relying on the two sister papers to provide such coverage.
*-It is a 5-day-a-week daily with a website behind a paywall.
*-I don't know what the pay is now, but in the past, it's been on the high side of average for a small shop.
*-It's in a fairly small, family-owned chain that doesn't appear in danger of being sold.
*-There is next to no competition. The Indy Star has basically given up on covering the area because it doesn't have the business/advertiser base that the other three sides of town do.

Keep your eyes open:
*-In the last few years, they've basically consolidated all operations with two sister papers located two counties away, with a group publisher and group editor, both based in Columbus. One would *think* that would give a lot of autonomy, but all design is done in Columbus, and the new group editor has a very strong reputation for being a micromanager, even from 60 miles away. There has been significant turnover here since last fall, including *both* sports positions, the former editor in chief (who was an outstanding editor) and two news-side reporters.
*-With the EIC and backshop all 60 miles away, Greenfield tends to play third-fiddle. In sports coverage decisions, the other two papers almost always win out.
*-Deadlines are better than they once were, but are still pretty tight in the evening.
*-The aforementioned group editor is the one receiving resumes and apparently doing the hiring here.

 

Thank you for the information. This answered nearly every question/concern I had with the position/paper.

 

I've got a lot of knowledge on this gig as well. Happy to lend out some info.

 

Any idea what the "other sports" are?

 

Widgets

 

The Culver's near I-70 is good.