USA Today reporter, editor jobs - NFL, NBA, MLB, college, etc.

If you're good, someone will forgive you... I worked with one guy who never stayed more than 18 months at one place during the first 10 years of his career and places were lining up to hire him.

The writer I mentioned earlier in the thread actually accepted jobs on more than one occasion and just didn't show up. Places were lining up to hire him.

For every sports editor who would never hire Tyler in a million years, there is another one who will be intrigued by a writer who has garnered so much interest. He'll have no trouble getting another job when he finally decides to leave the JS.

 

Dunne on why he's going back to the JS:

http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/sports/178084511.html

 

Well, that said nothing...

I bear no ill will toward the kid. I read his stuff regularly and I've probably defended him as much as anyone on this site, but if someone accepts this at face value, they're kidding themselves. He walked away from a national job to go back to playing third fiddle, granted, it's third fiddle at a paper that one could argue has the best NFL coverage in the country, and the person who had that job before him is now the Pats beat writer at the Globe, but still...

 

I must have missed the "why" in that brief blog post. "I realized the JS was the right place for me" doesn't answer the question.

And I've no idea who he is, nor do I care, as I am not an NFL fan. But if I am a JS reader and wonder why he's back, that didn't answer the question.

 

Check the comments on the post. It seems readers don't care, just glad he is back. (Small sample size, of course)

 

To defend Dunne and his decision(s):

Was it in poor taste to take a job and then go back on it? Probably. Was it in poor taste to do it twice? Absolutely.

But these organizations have no problem firing/laying us off in a second if that's what a higher-up decides needs to be done. Need to add $200K to the profit for first two quarters of the year? Layoff five workers. Who cares what the online metrics say. Who's to say in three years that this USA Today Sports Media Group thing isn't working out and they decide to blow up the entire operation? Who's to say the J-S won't lay off another Packers writer? We've seen it happen. Don't ever forget what happened to FanHouse.

As humans, we have the right to be happy. Good on Tyler Dunne for doing what makes him happy. I'm sure he'll survive.

 

I hear you, Simon, but that's a lazy reason to defend him.

It'd be more like your paper calling you in to lay you off, filing the paperwork and sending you home. Then, a short while later, calling you back and saying it made a mistake. You went through all that for nothing. Sure, you have a job again, but damn.

Does that seem like a good and honest thing to do? Something you could just overlook because it has the potential to be a good place to work?

Now imagine a paper did it to you twice.

 

Regarding Dunne's first flip ... if I recall, the animosity towards him was more to how he contacted the Florida paper to say he'd taken another job, not that he'd taken another job. What would you do if you took a job to cover preps in Florida and the next day got an offer to cover an NFL team?

 

The animosity was rooted in the fact that Dunne's would-be editors in Florida had gone to extraordinary measures to convince their own bosses that Tyler wasn't a job-jumper. They signed off on the hire, and a few days later, sure enough he burns them. Outside that newsroom/company, others were disappointed in how Tyler alerted the folks in Florida.

The point here is that he's accumulating quite a list of powerful editors who now have good reason to avoid Tyler, and to tell others they should avoid him, too. It just doesn't seem as though he realizes that this is a fairly small industry, in which everyone knows everyone. Sure, he'll get another job and probably many more opportunities. He'll also lose out on some good ones, too.

Before he his next move, I just think he needs to grow up a little. Having his sports editor come here and defend him just excuses Tyler from facing the music one more time.

 

His first flip was a no-brainer. This one is more of a head-scratcher...

 

Sorry to interrupt the discussion, but since this is the USAT jobs thread, I thought I'd offer this: I expressed interested in two or three openings USAT was offering, going on three or four months ago now, whatever it's been, and day before yesterday I received an e-mail from Gannett notifying me that one position I applied for - high school sports editor - was no longer available. That's what it said.

As you were ...

 

This kid has done nothing to his reputation that a good 20-25 year stint at the Milwaukee paper won't fix for him.

However, he might by then become one of the folks grousing about job-jumpers on this board, while knowing that their phones won't be ringing anytime soon.

Boy needs to calm down and do the job, not chase the jobs.