Sports Writer - Fort Smith, Ark.

My old shop as an opening ...

The Times Record, a 30,000-circulation daily on the Arkansas-Oklahoma border, is looking for a sports reporter who is dedicated to accuracy in game stories and humanity in features.

The Times Record, more than 125 years old, is the dominant news force in the market. The action is fast-paced, and the atmosphere is collegial. Although we are in the heart of Arkansas Razorbacks country, this position is for someone who loves high school sports.

A college degree and some professional writing experience are preferred.

The successful candidate will be able to work an assigned beat and develop the kinds of sources that help uncover human stories about the players.

Please send a cover letter, resume with references and link to your best clips to Brian Sanderford at bsanderford@swtimes.com or mail to Brian Sanderford, P.O. Box 1359, Fort Smith, AR 72902 - See more at: News - Gatehouse Media

 

Scott, who's leaving?

 

It's a domino from Robbie leaving and Eric moving to the UA beat. So it's to fill Eric's position covering preps and, I think, UAFS (since nobody else there seems to want to do it).

 

Duh. I don't know why I forgot Eric filled Robbie's job. Thanks.

 

Thoughts on this paper?

 

It's been bought by GateHouse (or whatever the purchasing body is calling itself nowadays). Which means, despite its past status as a decent stop, you should stay the fuck away. Signed, a GateHouse refugee.

 

I spent 18 years there, 10 as the sports editor before I left last August. I left before the sale to Gatehouse, so I'll defer on that one.

The main focus is preps coverage, I think we had nearly 40 schools in our last football tab and that was after I cut a lot of rural ones due to staff downsizing. Currently, there are two full-timers (way down from when I started as SE 11 years ago) and one part-timer who does the work of a full-timer.

Thanks to a cost-cutting move designed to help facilitate the sale to Gatehouse, the printing press in Fort Smith was shut down last August. The paper is now printed by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette's press up in Springdale - about 60 miles away. That means obscenely early deadlines. On football Fridays, they held the press to get gamers in. But to speed up the process, they only did scoring summaries instead of full boxscores. Those run on Sundays. During basketball season, most of the time they could only cover the girls basketball games that tipped at 6 p.m. in print and put the boys games that tipped at 7:30 on the web.

The University of Arkansas is handled by a one-man bureau who lives in that corner of the state. University of Arkansas - Fort Smith is a Division II school (no football) that doesn't get much attention.

Pay will be horrible. I'd be shocked if they were offering more than $26,000 for this gig. That said, you can actually survive on that in Fort Smith. Our cost of living is one of the cheapest in the nation.

The two full-timers on staff are lifers. But the SWTR should be a stepping stone. This would be a great gig for somebody straight out of college. Get in there, crank out a lot of copy, build your clips and get out in two years.

(And, for God's sake, whoever gets this gig better start blogging like a champ. The damn sports blog hasn't been updated since February and it pisses me off every time I look at it.)

 

Why did you leave?

 

Several reasons. Mainly, I was putting in way too many hours per week. Plus, as a long-term and salaried employee I worried that one day the bean counters would look at my salary and decide they could hire somebody to do my job at half of what I was making. So I got a corporate PR job.

That said, I still think the SWTR is a fine little paper. There are some fantastic people over there busting their tails to do good journalism. As I said, I think it could be a good learning experience for somebody needing to build clips.

 

Thanks, Scott. Have fun on the outside.

 

Thanks.

 

Scott by all accounts is a fine guy, and my comments weren't meant to disparage him or the paper. But I've been through the GateHouse song and dance before when it bought a paper -- initially claiming that everything would be status quo, even promising to beef up resources, then hiring people from out of state and whacking them three or four weeks later (true story).