And in your spare time ...

trimtofit · **Posted:** Tue Oct 16, 2007 7:34 pm

The Vacaville Reporter is looking for a sports "copy editor" who can do layout, while also doing the job of an agate clerk, answering phones and covering preps. Between deadlines there are probably "opportunities" to wash the publisher's car and fetch coffee. Pay is negligible, but the working conditions aren't very good, so it balances out.

Heartodixie · **Posted:** Wed Oct 17, 2007 12:51 am

I think pitching in and doing some of everything is pretty much the norm for prep-focused sports sections in small cities.

I got stuck doing some small-town courthouse reporting up there a few years ago and fell a little in love with that area. Adorable small towns just a short hop from San Francisco. It's the lesser of two papers in that county, but I would've worked there.

Wabberjocky · **Posted:** Wed Oct 17, 2007 9:16 am

That Vacaville opening seems okay for a first job. Learn the craft, learn a variety of skills ... and move on and move up in 18 months or so.

trimtofit · **Posted:** Wed Oct 17, 2007 11:06 am

That job just seemed like an awful lot of hats to wear at a paper that can't possibly pay what it costs to live there. I'm sure it would be good experience for anybody who likes sports.

It wouldn't occur to me to call Vacaville (literally, "cow town") an adorable small town. But I grew up not far from there, so perhaps I am immune to its charms. That place hasn't been the same since they tore down the old Nut Tree ...

larepublica · **Posted:** Wed Oct 17, 2007 12:46 pm

trimtofit wrote:

That job just seemed like an awful lot of hats to wear at a paper that can't possibly pay what it costs to live there. I'm sure it would be good experience for anybody who likes sports.

It wouldn't occur to me to call Vacaville (literally, "cow town") an adorable small town. But I grew up not far from there, so perhaps I am immune to its charms. That place hasn't been the same since they tore down the old Nut Tree ...

And replaced it with "outlet" shops and prefab McHouses. They should rename the place "Thiscouldbeanywhereville"

Heartodixie · **Posted:** Wed Oct 17, 2007 10:55 pm

Really? I haven't been away that long. I remember Solano County charming the pants off me. Maybe it was the emissions from the Jelly Belly factory?

Wabberjocky · **Posted:** Thu Oct 18, 2007 10:50 am

The Vacaville paper was the focus of this 4 1/2-year-old AJR story on the newspaper job market. Much was made of the Vacaville paper as a place to get your start ... and get the hell out sooner than later. Like hundreds of other papers.

At the time, they were paying entry-level reporters $11.25 an hour.

Quote:

By taking the job, Mannes entered into an unspoken agreement with the Reporter: She offered the newspaper a bright, energetic reporter who works whenever needed, writes at least two or three stories a day plus weekend features, drives her own car (a 133,000-mile, eight-year-old Nissan Sentra with no air conditioning to ward off Vacaville's 100-degree summers) and is willing to spend more than half her take-home pay on rent and student loans.

In return, the newspaper teaches her what Barney calls the "firsts" of reporting.

Barney describes the training of one of Mannes' colleagues: "We have walked her through the firsts--the firsts that you experience, the first time you have to cover a double homicide and all the gory details, all the 'I didn't say that; how can you say I said that?' witnesses demanding retractions. We've gone through the politics of covering a city council and her disappointment at being lied to in the way a politician will couch things.... We've walked her through all these firsts and she's really become a reporter in the true sense of the word."

Barney wants this symbiotic relationship to last two years, about the average stay for young reporters and copy editors who come to Vacaville. "The first year is an investment," she says. "The second year we reap the benefit of that investment."

Wabberjocky · **Posted:** Thu Oct 18, 2007 10:52 am

From the same story:

Quote:

Ask Vacaville's Barney to name her newsroom's biggest need and she mentions the five-person copy desk, which "has been new for three years."

"The copy desk is the perfect epitome of where our struggle is," she says. "Turnover on the copy desk has been the most dramatic and most damaging. I can't afford to hire a really experienced copy editor for what I can pay" ($11.50 an hour).

News Editor Angela Adams, who manages the desk, is more blunt. "It's really hard to get qualified people because we don't pay what I consider a living wage," says Adams, who is 38 and lives with her parents for financial reasons. "It's great if you're really young. It's great if you have a spouse or another income. For a person who is single, it is really hard."

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