Managing editor job, five-day daily. Kind of isolated, Western state.
That doesn't reveal too much, as towns big enough to be small cities can be kind of isolated in any Western state due to population and climate controls on it out there.
So, I won't say more, so I don't alienate the publisher if this is read by that person. Well, sort of; hold on to that thought.
Job advertisement was on JournalismJobs in early June. Apparently nobody bit, or nobody good enough for their ask, or nobody cheap enough for their offer sheet or some combo of the above. (Job listing says that pagination as well as website content management experience is required, which means no pagination hub, and who knows how much help, to boot. Also weirdly, it uses a Siri-type app to do voice versions of all stories. Can't be for the visually impaired, as you have to see to hit the "play" button.)
So, it was readvertised a month or so later, early-mid July.
So, I applied, to kick the tires as much as anything. In addition to the notes above about a spot being advertised again, per not wanting to alienate the publisher, I told them in my cover letter and email that I knew more about the place than the typical out-of-state applicant, and hinted it was a fair chunk more, but didn't go into detail, lest I risk alienation.
I did not tell them that I also knew the previous ME had stuck only a year or just over.
Anyway, the publisher did make me a bit green with anger, not envy.
Said I needed clips along with cover letter and resume. I said I have a Google Docs link, open to public, at the end of the resume. Publisher said no bueno.
So, with no more than medium effort, I gave them a police story about a drug and alcohol sales to minors sting, a column related to that, as no more than medium effort, and then a 5,000-word, or more, long feature story about the retirement of the previous priest at the Catholic church here. I wanted something that long deliberately.
Month later? Haven't heard back and I sent no queries. My tire kicking was not high-level interest even before the personal interaction.
==
And, what the hell. Let's name names.
It's .... the ....
Roswell Daily Record. Per the "about"
on its website, it's like Jill Stein trying to pretend to not be an
antivaxxer while actually being one. In this case, it's trying to
pretend not to push 1947 UFO conspiracy theory while actually doing so.
In
July 1947, something streaked out of the sky, hitting the ground
outside of Roswell, New Mexico, beginning years of ongoing speculation
as to what the object was. According to initial information provided to
the Roswell Daily Record by the Roswell Army Air Field, the startling
headlines claimed that the military had recovered a flying saucer from a
nearby ranch.
Overnight, the story
changed from a flying saucer to a weather balloon, and over the ensuing
years, that explanation morphed into a military high-altitude
surveillance program. Over decades of conspiracy theories that the U.S.
government has covered up the possibility that an alien spacecraft and
its otherworldly crew were responsible for the 1947 crash. Through it
all, and continuing to this day, the Roswell Daily Record was there to
report the news and to spark the public interest and fascination with
this story.
Wrong.
The publisher, and owner, is the daughter of a long-term owner who died in 2018. AFAIK, it's the only paper they own.
And, Beck daughter has a reason to peddle this, as did daddy, assuming he did, too.
The paper owns its own UFO store.
Of course, here's the reality.
And, I knew that reality long ago. I also know that, 25 years ago, Roswell boosters were talking about when the city would hit 50,000. Never happened. Population's been basically flat since 1990 and Farmington has just about caught it, while the Farmington metro area is much bigger.
Basically, it's a High Plains/edge of desert community, that has, or it was when built, the largest mozzarella cheese plant in the US if not the world. But climate change and water owed to Texas on the Pecos and no aquifer of note in the area will ding that. There's some oil there, but not like in the Permian. New Mexico Military Institute is the only other major or semi-major business driver.
