Sports writer, page designer openings in St. Joseph MI

[jason_mitchell]

The Herald-Palladium in St. Joseph, Michigan has an opening for a full-time sports writer and a full-time sports page designer.
The writing position includes preps, community/rec sports and the usual day-to-day reporting a paper our size does (mid teens circulation). Some pagination will be required, so knowing your way around InDesign is a big plus. I try to get our guys out to some college football games in the fall. This is mostly night work with rotating Saturday work and a rare Sunday ashignment or shift. Experience preferred but college grads with solid writing and reporting skills are welcome to apply.
The page designer opening involves pagination work as part of our design hub, as we lay out 11 daily papers within our company. This second shift position will include some work on news pages but is majority sports. Occasional writing ashignments or game coverage possible. The more experience the better. InDesign experience required. This job requires weekend work but won't be every weekend. Send a resume, cover letter, design samples and writing samples to newsroomjobs@thehp.com.

 

[jason_mitchell]

Some more about our openings ...

The sports writing job is heavy on prep sports. We cover 26 schools in a three-county area in the southwest corner of Michigan, and often are chasing teams deep into postseason play.
Some pagination work is required but I try to keep it limited.

The design position includes being part of our design hub where we lay out 11 company papers. Only one - The HP - publishes seven days a week/365 days a year. The other 10 papers publish either five or six days a week and on various holidays. The hub is going through some structural changes which are creating a more efficient operation.

St. Joseph isn't a bad place to live - beach town 90 minutes from Chicago. Sports fans around here are split between Detroit and Chicago pro teams and Michigan, Michigan State and Notre Dame.

 

[DeskMonkey1]

Is the pay adequate for a "beach town?"

 

[jason_mitchell]

Is the pay adequate for a "beach town?"

Current and past employees have lived within a block of the beach, in apartments that aren't tiny and dumpy. Several more have been able to find affordable places to live within a 10-minute walk of the beach. We've been able to help locate affordable housing options to new hires.

 

[Twirling Time]

This ain't Miami. I imagine living on this beach is undesirable for five months out of the year. Probably worse than Chicago with the prevailing winds off the lake.

 

[cjericho]

This ain't Miami. I imagine living on this beach is undesirable for five months out of the year. Probably worse than Chicago with the prevailing winds off the lake.

You are near the beach. You just need a couple pairs of shorts and 10 t shirts and you're good.

 

[Nick Forrester]

This is my hometown and I'll vouch that it is a great beach town. But it is Michigan, so don't expect to be able to spend all year down there. As far as the high school sports teams go, lots of top talent in the area. Great football, basketball and wrestling especially. And only 45 minutes from Notre Dame, 1.5 hour from Michigan State and 2.5 hours from Michigan.

 

[steveu]

But how far from Tahoe?

I thought JJobs listed the salary as 25-30K. Not sure about cost of living down there (it's about an hour and a half and change southwest of me), but they do put out a good product IMO.

 

[mrudi19]

St. Joe is my hometown too and and like others have said, it's a great beach town. St. Joe is not too far from other good size cities. South Bend, Indiana and Kalamazoo are 45 minutes away, Chicago and Grand Rapids are both 90 minutes and Detroit is three hours. St. Joe-Benton Harbor has most of the big box stores (Target, Walmart, Best Buy) and they just opened a Buffalo Wild Wings in St. Joe. There is a mall in the area, but outside of JCPenney, there isn't really much in it. If you need more shopping, South Bend and Kalamazoo should have what you need. And a lot of solid preps in Southwest Michigan and good talent there. Benton Harbor HS has had a ton of solid talent like Joique Bell, Wilson Chandler and Destiny Williams, who was a McDonald's All-American and on Baylor's 2012 women's basketball national title team. St. Joe and Lakeshore have a good rivalry in football and basketball. When I was in high school at St. Joe, the gym was always packed for St. Joe-Lakeshore basketball and I'm sure it still is. Lake Michigan College, a JuCo in Benton Harbor, has had some solid men's basketball teams in the past. As far as the H-P goes, I know the paper itself has shrunk a lot in recent years like most papers have. I usually try and read it when I visit my parents and they always have solid preps coverage. Not sure how much online stuff they are doing.

 

[jason_mitchell]

Like many news outlets our size, pay isn't special. I do take advantage of our schedules by putting together some weekends off and even three-day weekends on occasion. In Michigan, Saturday action isn't as big as M-F games. This changes during postseasons.

Most of the time the sports writers are off Saturday-Sunday or Sunday-Monday once we get back into the school year. We also have two part-timers who do phones and gamers, and they do Saturday work.

When vacations - or openings - happen in summer, schedules aren't as set but that's to be expected.

 

[jason_mitchell]

The sports writer position has been filled. We still have a sports pagination job open. With recent restructuring within our pagination hub, our sports paginators will be doing almost all sports work; previously, the two positions involved news pages. Once all the desks are filled, I see some extra time opening up for story writing, game coverage, etc.