Sports reporter, Orlando Sentinel

Overview:

The Orlando Sentinel is looking to fill a position for sports reporter to be part of our team that covers more than 80 high schools in the highly competitive Central Florida market. Reporter also will assist in coverage of other local sports teams such as the Orlando Predators professional football team.

Responsibilities:
Reporter will cover games; write breaking news, features and enterprise stories on a wide range of topics; shoot and edit video; contribute to a blog, create and manage content for the web and contribute to and compile rankings, all-star teams and more.

Qualifications:
We're looking for a versatile, talented reporter who knows how to juggle multiple assignments and can conceive and execute good ideas on deadline. Strong digital skills are expected, including the ability to shoot, edit and appear on video and to assist in management of our popular Sentinel Varsity website.

Send cover letter, writing samples and examples of your best digital work to:

Tim Stephens
Florida Sports Topics Manager
Orlando Sentinel/Sun Sentinel
633 N. Orange Ave.
Orlando, FL 32801

Or e-mail to sentinelsportseditor@gmail.com.

 

Who got bumped up?

 

This is a vacancy. FSU beat remains open and that search is ongoing.

 

Tim, I don't suppose I could live in St. Pete and cover Central Florida preps, right?

;D

 

If I were 20 years younger, I'd be all over this. Just don't have the desire to relocate again, but I loved Orlando.

 

I would argue that The Sentinel remains the best feeder paper out there. You go there and you do well and within 3-5 years you'll be a superstar.

No, it's not the same paper it was five years ago. You can say that about almost any paper in the country. But Orlando's writing talent is still raided more often than any other paper of its size in the country.

 

KC Star?

 

With gas headed to $4 or $5, good luck with a one-way commute of 100 miles. Sounds like fun.

 

KC is the better paper (or at least it was) but you usually don't see the constant turnover there that you do in Orlando. KC is more of a destination paper than a feeder paper.

 

There's been a string of talent to leave there -- Posnanski, Whitlock (maybe not talented, but capable of attracting an audience), Thompson, Quinn, Merrill and Reiter. Yes, some of those are not so recent but all are talented.

 

Difference is that Orlando brings in new talent and then they move on. The Star loses talent, doesn't fill the positions and then just has people absorb the other responsibilities, ultimately diminishing the content.

 

Orlando discovers talent, develops it and they move on. I'm sure KC has done the same a few times, but a decent portion of their writers were pretty damn established when they arrived at The Star, which is the way it should be.

If you look at the number of writers in the last decade or so that were either part-timers or working at tiny papers who went to Orlando and became superstars it's mind-numbing.