Another newspaper for whom to not work?

I saw an ad on JournalismJobs recently to be ME of a suburban weekly in a part of the country, and a metropolitan area, that I would like.

I applied six days after the posting, which did say the company, family-owned, was looking for a quick hire.

A response e-mail said I might be on the top end, or beyond, of qualification level for the position, but, I was asked if, with that in mind, was I really interested.

I got back a job description Word document in a response e-mail. In addition to pay scale, it also said, among other things:

But, by and large, we act more like a start-up than we do a traditional community newspaper. We are extremely swift to seek and seize opportunity. We welcome partnerships of all shapes and sizes within our community. We aim to be the best friend of local non-profits. And, we engage in our community – relentlessly.
That said, we also differ from most media companies in the way we tailor our compensation plans. We do not have a laundry list of special monetary incentives or perks, nor do we offer the traditional benefits that most companies struggle desperately with. We have no paid leave, no health insurance*, no retirement or cafeteria plan. Our wages do not set any records either; no one on our newspaper team can claim an above average salary.

OK, I've been at companies with no health insurance before, but not the other stuff.

So I e-mailed back a few questions:

No paid leave? As in no paid vacation? If I wanted a third week off a year, would that be problematic? What about traditional holidays? Is the managing editor an “employee” or a “contractor”? Am I responsible for all FICA taxes?

Serious questions. If it meant no paid vacation, and typical holidays weren't paid, that's a lot of $$ I have to knock off the base salary. Even more if the paper is trying to make the ME a contractor and paid self-employed payroll taxes.

Plus, there's a legality question on that, on which issue the Department of Labor has recently been cracking down.

Well, less than three business days later, I got a two-sentence e-mail response saying the position had been filled and offering me best wishes in my job hunt. None of the questions were answered.

Well, DOL's Wage and Hour division has received a query e-mail from me.