Website producer, NBA.com, Atlanta

[playthrough]

From the Time-Warner jobs site:

Site Producer, Editorial - NBA.com
Division Turner Broadcasting
Location United States - Georgia - Atlanta
Position
Type Full Time

Qualifications: Bachelor's degree or higher - preferably in journalism, communications, or language studies (including English). 5-7 years of experience in the sports journalism and coverage field (which can include and combination of newspaper, web, and magazine experience). 1-3 years of management experience, including the management of remote editorial staff and working with a variety of stakeholders on the production of quality content and coverage. Demonstrated understanding of the NBA and professional basketball and experience in creating content that grows audience or advertisers for media properties (which can include and combination of newspaper, web, and magazine). Must be willing to travel to key NBA news and season events, including All-Star, Draft, and others.

Duties: This Site Producer position will be available for hire on 9/1/2008. Supervise site production on the daily programming and production of the site, including the homepage scheduling of features, stories, special event coverage, game coverage, and breaking news. This includes collaborating with the Managing Producer of NBA TV for the development and production of cross-platform features. Oversee the scheduling and management of a team of shift producers. Participate in the creation of annual content plans, including the ongoing evaluation and adjustment of those plans based on the analysis of feature performance (traffic and usage), sponsorship participation, and new League initiatives. Work with the content and creative teams to guide sales and marketing in the creation of sponsor-driven features.

Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. and its subsidiaries are Equal Opportunity Employers.

 

[Drakes Place]

Has anyone heard anything about this?? All I know about so far is the people they're NOT hiring.

 

[mustangj17]

I applied for three of these positions this year. Promptly had interviews for the other two, heard nothing from ATL. And it was the first one I applied for. So don't hold your breathe.

 

[JohnKeene]

sounds like a pipe dream, sorry...

 

[Songbird]

I'm ready.

 

[Drakes Place]

Word is the staff was finally put together last week. I know one guy who interviewed THREE times for a position and didn't get it. Obviously, they had something like 200 billion candidates.

 

[scribe1]

Who told you the staff was in place? I know for a fact they have not finished hiring. They haven't even hired for this job as of this week.

 

[Drakes Place]

No one actually told me. I just know two of two people who got hired. Know anything else, Scribe1? Wonder if they're still taking resumes ... Regardless, the whole thing has been just plain strange.

 

[scribe1]

I thought you said the staff was in place. As far as I know, they haven't finished hiring, though Turner has been very unprofessional throughout this process and are way behind on a lot of levels.

What else do you know? I know that the current newsdesk staff in Secaucus have not gotten calls about jobs in Atlanta. Talk about strange.

 

[Drakes Place]

All I know is they've hired three writers from the "old" NBA.com, and at least one producer. I also know Turner isn't returning any calls or emails from candidates who were interviewed. It does indeed sound very unprofessional and disorganized.

 

[Joe Williams]

All I know is they've hired three writers from the "old" NBA.com, and at least one producer. I also know Turner isn't returning any calls or emails from candidates who were interviewed. It does indeed sound very unprofessional and disorganized.

Why did they even post those jobs, if they simply were going to take the incumbents? You'd think, as screwed up as the process has been, they could have done without the e-mails, letters and calls about jobs that never truly were available to outsiders.

 

[FlyZone99]

There are very peculiar rumors going around with all of the NBA.com positions at Turner that nothing is finalized and they are still trying to figure out a final plan to move forward with.

I have also heard that Turner had a recent budget crisis, which perhaps redirected the company's original plans. Apparently, when the NBA and Turner agreed to the deal, Turner wanted to expand the product and in effect, increase the number of staff that originally worked on the site when the NBA had full control. It is possible that due to financial reasons, they have pulled back from hiring the ample number of people that they initially desired to.

I also had heard that over the past few months, there was some indecision on who would be updating the site and where the site would be updated. I know at one point they wanted to be spread around the country, having staff in Atlanta, New York and Los Angeles. The last I heard, they were planning to have writers work out of New York and Los Angeles, but have the main site production staff work out of Atlanta. Originally however, there had apparently been some talk that a desk staff could work out of New York offices. To my understanding, that has since changed.

I know one person who works for Turner Sports on the television side and he tells me that there seems to be a lot of dysfunction right now on how everything is going to be run. He says he has seen very very few people get hired and that they have increased the workload for those that are currently working for the company.

I also have heard that currently, the site is still being run out of NBA offices even though Turner is supposed to take over any day now. I don't know anyone that works for the NBA specifically, but a person close to the situation says those still running the site have no idea if they will have jobs when Turner officially takes over. Someone who posted above says the newsdesk staff had not been offered jobs of any kind, so I don't know what is going on.

So, that is about all I can share about this position. It sounds to me like there are a lot of people in the dark on what is exactly going to happen. Good luck to all who applied for positions.