As a salaried employee, hours will vary, but the sports editor must be able to work an average of 25 hours per week. The sports editor will coordinate a staff of three sports reporters (sometimes including a senior reporter) covering sports-related news (events and in-depth reporting), and will be specifically expected to:
- Write a minimum of 30 inches of copy per week
- Put together large, special sections or supplements for home games, or as required
- Work with reporters to generate story ideas
- Coordinate at least one enterprise story per reporter per term
- Assist reporters in writing and improving their work
- Become extremely familiar with the rules of Associated Press and Emerald style
- Ensure that all areas of sports are regularly covered. At the minimum, the sports desk must regularly cover University intercollegiate athletics, Club Sports, and major professional and college sports, as appropriate
- Coordinate with the graphics department to ensure as many stories as possible have a visual element with them by posting photo and graphic tips, and when appropriate, by sending reporters out with a camera
- Issue blog posts and Twitter alerts as necessary, and ensure that no pertinent news goes unreported
- Assign reporters breaking news stories, blog posts or Twitter alerts as necessary
- Write breaking sports stories to post to Web site as necessary
- Coordinate a minimum of two Podcasts weekly
- Meet daily deadlines and ensure reporters do as well
- Prepare a daily budget for sports pages and select photos to accompany stories
- Assist in the hiring of sports reporters
- Ensure that all sports reporters are effectively utilized and receive ongoing training
- Keep regular office hours
- Attend required staff meetings and schedule weekly desk meetings with reporters to discuss problems and plan coverage
- Attend week ahead meeting on Sunday and budget meetings at 3 p.m. Monday through Thursday
- Monitor the news daily to keep abreast of all issues that need to be covered and see that no pertinent news is missed
- Set individual goals each term to improve journalistic skills and help others set goals each term to improve their journalistic skills
Direct supervisor: Managing editor
