• CBS predicts that Tiger Woods return to golf will be the biggest television event since Barack Obama’s inauguration.
• SportsBiz offers up some unique numbers about the men’s basketball tournament brackets.
• Ed Sherman of ChicagoBusiness.com spoke with the president of the Chicago Wolves (AHL) about his career and some of his favorites.
• Sports, Media & Society links to a study recently published that describes a gender divide in sports information.
• A guest post at Culpwrit tabs five personal attributes one needs to succeed in PR.
• Sports Networker spoke with Jerry Walker, who is the former PR director for the San Francisco 49ers and the current NFL Replay Communicator.
• Activ8Social names the top 30 athletes on Facebook and explains its reasoning for each athlete.
• Recent research indicates that journalists are looking to social media when researching a topic according to Journalistics.
• Pew Research provides some interesting statistics about the rise of Internet use to gather news.
• Sports PR 101 takes a look at the fun PR campaign that combines Stephen Colbert and the U.S. Speedskating before the Winter Olympics.
• PR Squared gives readers a lesson on pitching and telling you what to avoid doing.
• A guest post on The Business of Sports offers up four things that you need to do to get into the sports industry.
• Dumb Little Man, a blog that provides tips for life, lists eight hidden business lessons that can be learned from March Madness.

Blogging/Writing Tips

• Blogussion debates the value of SEO for your blog and also provides some tips on improving your blog’s SEO.
• Speaking of SEO, Daily Blog Tips links to Google’s SEO Report Card that was created to show Google employees on how to optimize their pages for search engines.
• Quips and Tips for Successful Writers shows you how to get readers to comment on your blog posts and then tells you how to leave solid comments.
• CopyBlogger gives 10 steps on landing a guest post for an A-list blogger.
• Blogussion shows you how to write more creative leads and provides a guide to writing better headlines.

New Media

Just like how our fighters prepare with their training partners to be their very best, here at the Ultimate Fighting Championship we encourage that type of teamwork. A UFC employee, like a mixed martial artist, is well-rounded and willing to put in the time necessary to be world-class. With an office full of champion workers, the UFC has fought relentlessly to break into the sports world with undeniable success – But the fight isn’t over yet. So if you would like to watch the sport you love grow right in front of your own eyes because of your hard work, then come join a great team and become part of a sports revolution.

Purpose is to expose college students interested in future careers in Business and/or Marketing to practical work experience.

Selected candidate will help influence the direction of online and other forms of new media marketing campaigns and initiatives to further various revenue streams and to promote the UFC and WEC brands. Candidates will utilize their knowledge and experiences while working on new marketing campaigns, research and projects , i.e. marketing analysis, piracy issues, new distribution opportunities, planning marketing opportunities, utilizing social media tools, etc.

• Candidates should be currently pursuing a Bachelors or Masters degree in Business Management, Marketing or related field.
• Must have strong organizational skills, writing ability and a basic understanding of marketing concepts and techniques.
• Should be proficient in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook.
• Ability and desire to work and learn in a fast-paced work environment.
• Good interpersonal and communicaton skills.
• Ability to analyze data.
• Knowledge of social networking and new media outlets.
• Must be enrolled in an accredited college and be receiving academic credit.
• Must be able to work at least 30 hours per week for summer semester and at least 10 hours for fall or spring semesters. Must be able to work for a minimum of one semester.

This is an unpaid internship and does not provide housing, relocation or transportation assistance.

Note: When you apply for this job online, you will be required to answer the following questions:

1. Yes/No: If selected for this internship, will you receive academic credit for it?
2. Yes/No: I understand this is an unpaid internship and if selected, I am willing to relocate for the duration of the internship.
3. What level are you in your academic program (junior, senior, graduate student?
4. What do you want to learn from this experience?
5. What is your career goal upon completion of your degree? What type of position do you hope to attain upon graduation?
6. What experience and skills have you gained through classes and work that will help you in this position?

Public Relations

This program offers the intern the opportunity to become directly involved in the public relations activities that are part of the daily operations of the department. We strive to make this a challenging and interesting experience for you and make every effort to tailor it to the specific skills and projects that you would like to pursue and build on. This department contributes to the organization through promotion of UFC and WEC products.
We are currently seeking an intern for our Public Relations deparment for the Fall 2010 semester. This internship will work closely with the Publicists and Public Relations Coordinator.
Through this opportunity, you will learn entry level public relations, and will have the opportunity to learn and observe the activities that go into promoting and the company, its events, and the fighters that participate in the events. You will receive exposure to all facets of public relations, including press releases, special events, creative brainstorming, and media contact.

Daily activities will include the following:
• Researching writers
• Assists with maintenance of the media database
• Coordinates schedules for fighters in conjunction with events
• Drafts press releases
• Coordinates interviews for events
• Prepares requisitions
• Assists with drafting media pitches
• Assists with daily news tracking, compilation and distribution

We are seeking candidates that are:

• Public Relations, Journalism, English or Communications majors
• Very proficient in Microsoft Word
• Proficient in writing and editing copy
• Have the ability to create compelling, unique stories and ideas
• Is comfortable in meetings and calls with high profile people and media entities
• Has excellent communications and organization skills
• Ability to maintain discretion and confidential information
• Team player
• Willing to learn and grow
Requirements:
• Must be enrolled in an academic program that is relevant to sales/sponsorship activities
• Junior, Senior or Graduate student preferred
• Must receive academic credit for internship
• Must be able to work a minimum of 20 hours per week if also attending school or 30 hours per week if not currently attending classes.
• Must be able to work a minimum of 1 semester.
This is an unpaid internship and does not provide housing, relocation or transportation assistance.

Note: When you apply for this job online, you will be required to answer the following questions:

1. Yes/No: If selected for this opportunity, will you receive academic credit?
2. Yes/No: Do you understand that this is an unpaid internship that is in Las Vegas and that no housing, relocation or transportation assistance is available?
3. What level are you in your academic program (junior, senior, graduate student)?
4. What do you want to learn from this experience?
5. What is your career goal upon completion of your degree? What type of position do you hope to attain upon graduation?
6. What experience and skills have you gained through classes and work that will help you in this position?

1) What suggestions would you give someone who is hoping to find a job in the sports PR industry?

I’ll first start out with the academic part of it. You don’t necessarily have to have a specific degree to succeed or find a job, but you have to develop certain skills and they’re basically your main communications skills. One is writing and the other part is the verbal skills—the interpersonal skills that you have and the ability to build relationships and getting to know and work with people. Those two aspects are vital. I would think from a more specific standpoint, anybody working in a sport management and/or marketing program would have good opportunities, as well as sports communication. I would also think if you are in a journalism school or in a public relations program, those build good foundations. Ultimately, what it comes down to in competing for an internship in the NFL, you have to have some solid experience while you’re in college and I can’t stress that enough to students about getting experience early. Earlier than later!

It’s very difficult at times to all of a sudden graduate and want to enter this field because you think this is interesting and this is what you want to do but you don’t have any experience. It’s very difficult so what I try to emphasize with students, especially in their junior year or sophomore year, is that wherever you are at whether it’s at college during the school year or whether you go home, there is some way that you can connect to the sports world.

If you have a minor league baseball team in your area, try working for them during the summer and doing whatever you can to just get experience whether it’s from a sports management standpoint or media relations standpoint. Get your foot in the door and start working around a sports organization. Writing for a sports section or a sports department is really good because some of the writing is similar. Our interns and entry-level assistants have to deal with writing, and if they are at least around athletes and writing about athletes they get a good understanding of sports writing and the sports industry. That’s another really good, solid experience to have. And that writing follows you all the way during your career.

Not only do you need to have a pretty decent education structure, but you have to have experience and those two things work hand in hand because once you have that experience, you start networking and start building contacts who will help you down the road. Those are the two things to get people started, but the another thing that I’d like to add is to understand that every day, no matter if you’re an intern or in my position or even a student trying to find an internship, you have to prove your value and you have to make sure that you demonstrate the skills to succeed. It is about your ability to add value to the organization that you are either working for or want to work for that’s really important.

2) What type of character traits do you look for in potential hires whether it’s for an internship or a full-time position?

I want to make sure that the person has a base understanding and knowledge of sports, especially with the sport of football. If a person comes in and has writing experience but they don’t know certain things about the game, such as struggling to figure out what certain positions are, it’s very difficult for us to feel comfortable with them. Once they join us, things move fast and get going, and we don’t have a lot of time to train and teach people like the basic fundamentals of the game. That’s one, having a base knowledge of sports and football.

Second is that work ethic can’t be stressed enough. We need to make sure that they’re going to put the time in and put the effort in to help our department. As you know, this is not a 9-5 job and it’s not a job that you’re going to work a few hours a week and master. You’ve got to put the time in it. When training camp starts, we’re working seven days a week basically until we have a bye week so you have to be committed and you have to show commitment from day one.

Another trait that you need to have is the ability to be a self-starter in terms of some projects because we can’t, especially the way I manage our internship program and our department, micro-manage people. I don’t like to micromanage my employees. I don’t like to micromanage my interns so you better be able to handle projects and you must be able to say, ‘Okay, this project is done. What else can I work on? What else can I get started?’ And if you don’t have direction at that specific time than you may even want to propose something. ‘Hey this is what I’m thinking of doing.’ Because one, if you can propose a project that’s going to add value or help the department, that’s great but it’s also going to show that you are very progressive and that you are basically a go-getter in terms of what you’re doing. That’s really important.

I tell our interns when they start with us that I want to give you as much responsibility and opportunities that you can get. I don’t have problems giving you projects that are normally held for a full-time assistant because that’s ultimately going to benefit you in the long run to be able to do some of those and have that on your resume and portfolio. I’m not going to give those to you unless: one, you’ve proven the ability to do it and, two, if you’ve earned that opportunity. There might be some simple responsibilities that you have as an intern like newspaper clippings and so forth that if you don’t master those I’m not going to give you more responsibilities. It’s not right and it’s not fair for everyone involved so those are basically some character traits that I think are very important.

1) In 2008, you guys obviously had a tough season going 0-16. As a PR department, how do you deal with something like that and what were some of the obstacles that you had to overcome during that season?

Well how we dealt with it was that we didn’t focus on 0-16. Just like the team, we were focusing week-by-week. We weren’t looking at how this is going to affect us long-term or what’s going to happen three weeks down the road. Our focus was to do what we can as a PR department to help this organization prepare and get ready for the next game. So you really narrowed your focus and as much as possible and kept focus on the upcoming game. Much like the team preparing each game, you were doing the same thing and working in concert with the same message and the same mission that they were doing. Obviously things didn’t turn out anywhere where we expected and it was a disappointment, but you’ve got to have that mindset especially if the team is moving in that direction. You need to make sure that you stay on that same message.

In terms of the challenges, it got very difficult at times for players to keep talking about what would happen if they went 0-16 and so forth. It was difficult from the standpoint that we knew our players and coaches were putting out a great effort and things just weren’t happening in our favor on Sundays. That was hard to do, and we had a lot of requests that focused on our season because of the historical nature of it. We had to really structure any types of those requests accordingly, and we made sure that we stayed on our mission and our message of working week-to-week and not let anything get sidetracked and that’s how we handled it. We didn’t set up any one-on-one interviews or requests. We just let reporters work within the confines of daily media access, and we gave our players a heads up about certain stories specific reporters were working on at the time. We couldn’t refuse access to league-mandated media sessions, but we didn’t have to fulfill special requests at the same time. I think this approach was effective.

2) You spoke with a few IU classes about the challenges you face dealing with blogs, especially ones that seem to really focus on rumors. What makes those blogs so challenging and what suggestions do you have for other PR professionals when it comes to dealing with these types of websites?

First of all, my suggestion to young, aspiring PR professionals is simple: remember you are the eyes and ears of an organization. That deals with traditional media, and now it’s dealing with more digital media, which can span the spectrum of blogs and rumor sites to social networking sites. So you’ve got to make sure you understand what’s going on at all times and keep track of everything. The reason for that is that it’s not necessarily what is being reported by some of those sites, it’s the reaction that is created by what they are reporting. What I mean is those sites have become very popular because they are read by the media. They are also read by people inside the league — executives and so forth – so if the media and leagues’ executives (when I say league, not necessarily the league office but just people around the league) are reading those sites then as a PR person you need to read what they’re reading.

What will happen is it may be a rumor and you may read it and it’s totally off-the-wall and you know it’s not true, but I know that there are reporters who are reading those postings who will, at some point, bring it up in their interaction with either our head coach or someone in our organization. You must make sure that you prepare your people to be able to handle some of those questions that come out of it. That’s very important. You want to eliminate, if possible, anything that may surprise your key persons of your organization who are in front of the media. It’s a challenge because you know a lot of that stuff isn’t accurate and it doesn’t really come to fruition a lot of times, but you have to make sure that you know what’s being reported when so the next time when your coach or somebody in your organization is available they are prepared the right way.

1) The Lions had the top pick in 2009 and obviously the draft generates so much media attention, especially of late. What types of things did you and your staff do in the weeks leading up to the draft and then actually on draft day when it comes to that overall first pick?

As the off-season kind of developed, we started to realize that there’s nothing we can do about the past and it helped us that we had a new face in terms of our head coach, Jim Schwartz, who does a tremendous job with the media. The way he handles the media positively impacts the development of this team. We quickly realized that no matter where we go, whether it’s the combine or owner’s meetings, we’re going to receive a lot of attention and there’s going to be a lot of people requesting for his time and our time because they want to know what’s going on and they want to know who we’re picking. The draft has become such a huge event – it’s one of the top events in all of sports and probably the top non-game event on the sports calendar each year. With that number one pick, all focus for the months leading up was focused on us because with the number one pick we held the key to the rest of the draft.

Overall, we just tried to maximize our opportunities because there are certain messages and certain things that we wanted to get across and we knew we were going to have the forums and interest from people writing about our team. Now there were also situations that we knew because of the interest we wanted to make sure that we handled the information flow effectively. One of the things our general manager, Martin Mayhew, set forth right at the beginning of the off-season was that he was he was going to hold a lot of information close to the vest, especially relating to our personnel and the number one pick. He didn’t want to give anyone any information that would enable them to plan a certain way that would affect our draft. We were very strategic in what we said and how we proceeded so that’s some of the things that went on last year. That strategy is ongoing and I think it helped up throughout last year’s draft, which turned out pretty successful.

As things got going and we started meeting with some potential players who could be our first round picks, our senior vice president spent a lot of time with each of the potential picks to get a feel for who they are, what they know about the media, how we deal with the media, what they can expect and what they can expect from our department. Some of the issues were like, ‘If we pick you, this is the reaction that we are expecting.’ We were able to help them be prepared even before (Matthew) Stafford was signed the day of the draft. We had a lot of good opportunities to do that because we know the number one pick gets so much attention, so we wanted to make sure that we handled that appropriately.

You usually do not want be the number one pick because that means you had a really bad season, but there was an opportunity with the interest to maximize opportunities there, and I think we did a really good job at doing it the right way. We took advantage of some situations and we made sure we delivered our messages appropriately.

Q: During the Stanley Cup Finals, the NHL PR staff comes in and handles certain aspects of the event. How is it with the NFL Draft? Is it primarily teams taking care of each of their draftees or does the league PR handle it more?

When it comes to the players who are actually in New York at the draft, the NFL PR takes them through their media obligations at the site. For the rest of the draftees, because you’re only talking about 10-12 people at max in New York, once they’re picked the media obligations and media opportunities are handled through the team. Even when Stafford was in New York we talked to him because we wanted to update him on any issues before he talked to anybody to prepare him for anything he might encounter. Again, we tried to eliminate surprises.

We work very well with our league office and our league office really respects the job that teams do, and I think that’s one of the greatest assets about the NFL. I’m not knocking in any way other sports because I don’t have their experiences, but I appreciate our league office because of their ability to understand and work with the teams and the draft is something that’s an extension of that cooperation. We worked together before the draft in coordinating many elements.

Our situation with Stafford was kind of unique. Basically, they (NFL PR in New York) were going through a situation that they never really had experienced before. In the past when a player got signed before the draft, it was like Friday or Thursday or earlier that week. Basically this came down to literally an hour before the draft actually started. So once that contract got confirmed and done, we were doing some media stuff here with our general manager, but yet we worked with the league in getting Stafford on the phone before the draft even started so our media wouldn’t have to wait until some of his obligations in New York. One of our objectives was that we wanted to make sure that when it was official that he talked to the Detroit media first. He was basically talking to the city of Detroit and our fan base first, obviously with the media as the conduit, but we wanted to make sure that happened and we worked with the league and they were very supportive.

1) You’ve been working with the Lions since 1997 and started off as an intern before making your way to your current title as Director of Media Relations. How did you go from being an intern with the team to where you are today?

I learned very early on that one of the best pieces of advice to me, given to me, is that you always want to try to work at the level above you. That means if you’re an intern, your level of work should be as an entry-level assistant. When you’re an assistant, you should try to be working your way up and working as an assistant director. Or if you’re an assistant director you should work at the level of the director. What you want to do is have people notice what you’re doing, notice your responsibilities and see how you grow. When the opportunity comes, you want to make sure that you’re the first person they think can fill that role. You want to be the first and best option.

I think that’s something that has been fortunate for me because I was able to get that advice and learn from some really good people over the years. I’ve always kept that in mind. As director, I have completed nine seasons. In the past probably three or four years, my mindset has been, ‘OK, I feel like I’ve really taken control of being director of this department. Now to add value to this organization, I want to start trying to work at the level of what a vice president or senior vice president would be.’ Again, you always want to keep the mindset to work at a level above you.

The second thing is that you always want to make sure, and I think I’ve kind of mentioned this before, everything you do adds value to the organization. You do whatever it takes or whatever is asked to make sure that you are contributing to the organization. It may not be in your job description, but you always want to make sure you’re assisting wherever you can because you never know who is noticing you and you never know how you can contribute to the success of the organization. Like we tell our players when they’re interacting with the media—you should always have the focus of team first. As a PR person, you should always have that focus as well—how you can benefit the team is in your best interest

Then the last thing probably for a more job-specific standpoint—every step of the way I felt that I have tried to get as much experience as possible in a lot of different aspects. When I was an intern, I was a PR intern but I also worked heavily on publications because we did a weekly newspaper back then so I understood that things like desktop publishing were going to be part of this job. Having those skills was going to help me out. In my first full-time position here, I was a PR assistant and a coordinator for the team’s website. I did that for a few years so I acquired at least a base level of Internet experience. Back then it was much of a very simplistic, probably considered now archaic, form of producing a team website. However, there are a lot of skills and many things that I learned then that would eventually help me down the road. In 2005, the decision was made to bring the Internet department under the direction of the PR department, so it fell under my direction. A lot of that stemmed from my experiences before that I can apply, and I can understand certain elements of it so you never know what kind kinds of skills will help you out. You should really try to master and accomplish whatever you can, whenever you can.

2) What types of responsibilities does your current job as Director of Media Relations entail?

I oversee the team’s media relations department. I basically separate the department into some key areas. One is media services and that’s your typical day-to-day coordinating interview requests and working with the media, working with the players and their media obligations and accreditation of the media. In essence, providing service and working with the team and utilizing the media in that aspect.

The second part is that I oversee the media information portion of our organization—any type of information, such as press releases, that you distribute to the media and to the public. We also have a team media website – http://media.detroitlions.com — that I oversee and we utilize that to not only post information, but we have unique registered media users so we send out all of our releases through the website so it’s sent electronically through the website. That’s how we distribute our information to our media.

The third part is the digital media portion of our organization and that’s DetroitLions.com and the development of that website. I’m really excited about this part right now because have been integrated into the new NFL platform that was launched in 2008. The operations of team websites from a hosting standpoint is being integrated into one platform hosted by NFL Media. Each team will still operate and have their direction of their site. It is a different approach compared to Major League Baseball or the NBA where it’s more of a league-level initiative—somewhat every site looks the same. What we’re doing is sharing resources.

The fourth part of our department is publications and that focuses on the team’s media guide, yearbook and game programs.

The last part is research and archives, and that starts with daily newspaper clippings that we do. We have scrapbooks dating back to 1934. We are the team’s archivist from a news and information standpoint, and I also oversee a lot of research projects whether it’s for the media, coaching, player personnel or anything else that is needed in this organization. I am currently researching the prospects of digitizing our scrapbooks. That’s a significant project that needs to be done to further preserve our history.

Basically those are five key areas of what we do. Overall, we deal with team communications and issues the media are covering—like what’s going on at practice, what’s going on at the game, what’s going on with player transactions and so forth. We deal with corporate communications, which is more of the business side, and obviously crisis communications, which deals with any kind of situation that is pertinent in terms of those situations. But that’s basically what we oversee here.

“Every team has a leading scorer, and every team clamors for its proper place in media. But superlatives alone may not get the media drooling.”

He also referenced former publicist Joey Goldstein, who was known for his creativity and salesmanship, when others put out “corporate brochures” to demonstrate the value of those traits.

Furman argues that social media does not equal social contact, which he says is fundamental to the job. What do you guys think of his comments? I agree that social media can be a tool for PR practitioners and can offer means to be creative technologically speaking (i.e. contests, unique promotions), but building relationships with the media and other individuals remains critical to public relations.

As someone who is still searching for a job in the sports PR field (either with a team, sport publication, or an agency with sport clients), I wanted to create a post to go live during the HAPPO action. If you know of any relevant entry-level positions, please let me know via e-mail at christy[dot]hammond19[@]gmail[dot]com or by Twitter.

As you can see in my bio, I have 3.5 years of experience working for hockey teams (minor league, college, and the NHL), including 2.5 years with the Detroit Red Wings, in addition to a summer internship with Burson-Marsteller at their Chicago office. As my online portfolio and LinkedIn profile demonstrate, I have acquired experience in event management, new media (writing articles for the web and gameday programs, blogging weekly), media relations (updating media guides, setting up interviews, updating game notes and player bios, creating media lists and editorial calendars), and community relations (setting up meet and greets, maintaining charitable donations request database, assisting with 50/50 raffles).

If you have any questions about my experiences/qualifications or can point me to a relevant job opening, please reach me at christy[dot]hammond19[@]gmail[dot]com. Thanks in advance!

USA Shooting is the National Governing Body for Olympic shooting, and is based on the Olympic Training Complex in Colorado Springs, CO.  For more information on USA Shooting, go to http://www.usashooting.org.

USA Shooting will accept applications for the Media and Public Relations manager until Friday, February 5th. Applications should include a cover letter and resume, as well as writing samples or website link to recent work in the Media/PR field.

Applicants must possess at least a Bachelor of Arts degree in a relevant field, with strong skills in writing and editing, working in a web-based environment, video and print media production, as well as photo and graphics editing. Magazine layout and publication skills desired. Coordinating with media outlets and athletes to publish interviews and features is a major element of this position. In addition, the Media and PR manager will work closely with the USA Shooting Marketing department to increase brand recognition and exposure. A sports background and experience in the firearms industry is desired.

TITLE: PUBLIC & MEDIA RELATIONS MANAGER

RESPONSIBLE TO: Executive Director

COORDINATES WITH:
Other USA Shooting departments with emphasis on the Marketing Department & USA Shooting Team Foundation, sponsors, as well as allied organizations, USOC Media Relations, coaches, athletes, and other media outlets.

POSITION SUMMARY:
Responsible for promoting a positive image of USA Shooting and increasing the organization’s visibility. Issues all media announcements and official USAS positions. Responsible for the publication of the organization’s bi-monthly magazine, USA Shooting News and electronic newsletter. Responsible for overall management of the organization website and related analytics. Other functions related to the media field, such as photography and graphics design, media training for staff and athletes, internet portals such as facebook and Twitter; coordinating Hall of Fame selection and ceremonies.

QUALIFICATIONS:
Bachelor’s degree in public/media relations, communications or equivalent, and a minimum of three years relevant experience. Maturity and judgment to direct and coordinate efforts of the media office. Ability to collaborate with other agencies and departments. Knowledge and capability with current computer applications (Adobe Creative Suite; Windows XP/7, Microsoft Office including Word, Excel and PowerPoint) as well as the capability to work effectively with electronic communications. Photography skills as related to media requirements. Capability with basic video capture/editing skills. Ability to prioritize projects, manage time efficiently, handle details and follow several projects simultaneously to conclusion. Copy writing ability and layout experience is required. Experience in a web-based environment is desired. Experience in the firearms industry and/or a sport background is a valuable qualification, although not required.

AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY:
1. Promote a positive image of USA Shooting as the national governing body of the Olympic sport of shooting.
2. Work with staff and appropriate groups to identify and implement public relations policies and goals of USA Shooting.
3. Create an annual action plan with timelines for media activities and requirements.
4. Prepare an annual budget for the public relations department and operate within established parameters.
5. Maintain lists (mail & electronic) of national and hometown media contacts.
6. Publicize upcoming events, athlete achievements, competition results and other newsworthy subjects. Work closely with the Competitions Division for efficient coverage of competitive events, ceremonies, event results, and other significant activities
7. Maintain current athlete biographies and photo file for all team members.
8. Publish a media guide, develop press kits and coordinate media presence at key events.
9. Coordinate with USOC and ISSF media offices to provide press coverage of major shooting events.
10. Respond to inquiries for information on USA Shooting teams, and individual athletes.
11. Provide resource for hometown and national media for information on international shooting from grassroots through Olympic level of competition.
12. Work on-site at key competitions to provide news opportunities for print and broadcast.
13. Manage the International Shooting Hall of Fame & Athlete of the Year programs.
14. Write features and provide information as requested for publications within and outside of the shooting industry.
15. Assist the USAS staff with their desktop publishing projects such as flyers and brochures.
16. Assure the accuracy of all information disseminated by the public relations office.
17. Manage USA Shooting’s internet website, to include social network portals.
18. Serve as the organization photographer for internal and external requirements.
19. Publish the bi-monthly magazine (USA Shooting News), including editing, layout, copy, photography, ad sales, and content management.
20. Perform other duties as assigned.

Note: When you apply for this job online, you will be required to answer the following questions:

1. Yes/No: Do you have three years of experience in this field?
2. Yes/No: Do you have a Bachelor or Arts degree in a related field?
3. Yes/No: Do you have experience in writing and editing press releases on event results, features, bios/spotlights?
4. Yes/No: Are you comfortable in a web-based environment?
5. Yes/No: Do you have magazing publishing experience? Layouts, design, content, ad sales?
6. Yes/No: Do you have experience in brand marketing and development?
7. Yes/No: Are you comfortable in a collaborative environment that spans all company departments and entities?
8. Yes/No: Are you highly organized, efficient, and responsive?
9. Yes/No: Are you proficient in Adobe Creative Suite, MS Office, or similar applications?
10. Yes/No: Do you have photo and graphic editing skills?

• PR in Sports lists five social media tips for professional athletes.
• ESPN will launch ESPN 3D, which is the first for TV, blogs Awful Announcing.
• FootieBusiness.com interviewed Alex Gallegos of Chivas. The post also references other interviews the blog has done with marketing professionals in the MLS.
• The New York Times writes that “the N.B.A. made unavailable a picture of Gilbert Arenas of the Washington Wizards, who was joking with his teammates by shooting them with his fingers pointed like guns” and then comments on how this decision by the league fits in with others struggling to deal with new technology.
• The Atlantic argues that newspaper articles have gotten too long these days.
• AOL Fanhouse takes a look at the decade of the sports blog.
• Fang’s Bites lists the 12 sports media stories of 2009.
• I’ve mentioned previously here on SPRB that ESPN created localized sports websites, starting with ESPNChicago.com. Well, The Bristol Press reports that these local websites have been more successful than imagined.
• Back in late December, The New York Times wrote that TMZ plans to expand with its own sports site.