Writer/designer in Danville, Va.

i'm guessing that'd be left turns einstein.

 

Moddy repeatedly has given his Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. See if the past Danville threads still are floating around.

 

the same folks who own richmond and charlottesville own danville, yes? ... i think they also own tampa.

 

Yes, Media General pretty much owns everything in the Southeast that McClatchy and NYT Co. don't.

 

Richmond, Tampa and Winston-Salem are the three big Media General papers. Lynchburg and Bristol are both around 40-50,000 in circ. I think. Charlottesville is a little smaller than that and Danville a little smaller than that. I don't know that the Tampa Tribune really goes to Danville much to find young sports writing talent, but Lynchburg has for the UVA and Va. Tech beats.

 

so, media general is pretty much quality? i've only viewed a few of those papers.

 

For the most part, but you have to be very careful -- especially with the smaller operations.

 

And Bristol, Potomac, Lynchburg, Winston-Salem ...

 

MG has some decent papers in their possession -- Lynchburg does well for its circulation group, and their Holy Trinity are respected -- but their big issue is not paying out at the community papers. They pay roughly the same at their cluster of western North Carolina papers (Statesville, Hickory, Morganton, Concord, some other damn paper) that they do in Charlottesville and Woodbridge, both with much higher costs of living.

It's still a decent chain, though, certainly compared to your Odgens and JRCs and GateHouses.

 

Indeed. MG has decent technology and pretty damned good quality from its mid-sized dailies on up. About the only place it comes up short, if you're not at the three big boys, is pay. But cost of living is so low at a lot of its mid-sized papers that even at their meager starting salaries you're not going to be eating ramen five nights a week. And the opportunity does exist to move up within the company to the three big boys. The former SE at Bristol, for one, moved on to Tampa. If you have talent, they'll spot it.

 

That's affirmative according to the boots pipeline. Also heard some rumblings about some surprising strong candidates getting e-mails about expecting phone interviews and never receiving them. That's NOT good for business.

 

I'd find that rather surprising. Not saying your, um, pipeline is inaccurate, just that I'd find that highly surprising.