Writer wanted

Matt Doig wrote this ad for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and, yes, it's a real ad in a real newspaper. It's been making the rounds but I'm reposting just in case you missed it. And no, I don't know if the job's still open. We will be staying in Florida this summer near Sarasota so I especially like the last paragraph and plan to at least do a drive by of the paper. My kind of people.

We want to add some talent to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune investigative team. Every serious candidate should have a proven track record of conceiving, reporting and writing stellar investigative pieces that provoke change. However, our ideal candidate has also cursed out an editor, had spokespeople hang up on them in anger and threatened to resign at least once because some fool wanted to screw around with their perfect lede.

We do a mix of quick hit investigative work when events call for it and mini-projects that might run for a few days. But every year we like to put together a project way too ambitious for a paper our size because we dream that one day Walt Bogdanich will have to say: “I can’t believe the Sarasota Whatever-Tribune cost me my 20^th Pulitzer.” As many of you already know, those kinds of projects can be hellish, soul-sucking, doubt-inducing affairs. But if you’re the type of sicko who likes holing up in a tiny, closed  office with reporters of questionable hygiene to build databases from scratch by hand-entering thousands of pages of documents to take on powerful people and institutions that wish you were dead, all for the glorious reward of having readers pick up the paper and glance at your potential prize-winning epic as they flip their way to the Jumble… well, if that sounds like journalism Heaven, then you’re our kind of sicko.

For those unaware of Florida’s reputation, it’s arguably the best news state in the country and not just because of the great public records laws. We have all kinds of corruption, violence and scumbaggery. The 9/11 terrorists trained here. Bush read My Pet Goat here. Our elections are colossal clusterfucks. Our new governor once ran a health care company that got hit with a record fine because of rampant Medicare fraud. We have hurricanes, wildfires, tar balls, bedbugs, diseased citrus trees and an entire town overrun by giant roaches (only one of those things is made up). And we have Disney World and beaches, so bring the whole family.

Send questions, or a resume/cover letter/links to clips to my email address below. If you already have your dream job, please pass this along to someone whose skills you covet. Thanks.

Matthew Doig

Sarasota Herald-Tribune
1741 Main St.
Sarasota FL, 34236
(941) 361-4903
matthew.doig@heraldtribune.com

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More from Tonopah

The strange hills of Tonopah

The road goes straight to town

Convention Center (L) Belvedere Hotel (R) home to many pigeons

Ramada casino display.

Old Roma Cafe on the outskirts of town.

Tonopah in the spring

Lovely Tonopah. It's like coming home.
The baby bunny in the road

had no interest in moving for
the jeep even when I honked. 

When we finally

got to the Ramada

I rolled for the free room.

It takes three of a kind to win.

The guy checking in ahead of us won.

I did not.

Another cure for writer's block

Deadlines. So says Laura Miller in her recent article posted at Salon. We knew it all along, right? If  you have to, you will. So, I have given myself 10 minutes to write this post. Damn. I just wasted about three of those minutes fiddling around finding albums to copy to my player and several more re-reading Miller's article. I am down to one minute. ONE MINUTE. Deadlines and decoy projects.

That's what every blocked writer really needs: something more significant they should be doing instead, an earth-shaking, life-changing project you're stealing time from to work on this little novel. Or the great novel you ought to be drafting while you knock off your memoir just for fun. Granted, inventing such a decoy project and convincing yourself that you may actually get around to it someday requires a bold and sustained act of imagination. But that's what writers do, isn't it -- make stuff up?

My "decoy project": is blogging. How fucked is that?

Plastic Bag, narrated by Werner Herzog

My new favorite tale about the adventures of a discarded plastic bag struggling with its immortality as it ventures through a post-apocalyptic America.

Super Mega Moon in Minden

It isn't much but it's the best of the cell phone photos I got last night as the super mega moon was rising over Minden, Nevada. It's not a good photo. It's blurry and taken through the windshield. The streetlights are bigger than the lovely moon and it was lovely. In case you've never heard of Minden Nevada, now you have. This is the one of two blocks that make up what is basically downtown.

 

I want this to be all there is of Minden Nevada but it's not but the way the downtown is is still kind of the way it was, which I like. By the time I got home and to a good camera and tripod, minutes later, the moon had nearly vanished behind black clouds so this is it.

Oh, and Happy Spring Equinox. I would have preferred cherry blossoms to snow but snow it is.