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SF Newspaper Co.

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Considering working for The San Francisco Examiner or SF Newspaper Co.? Read On: - SF Newspaper Co Examiner Advertising Sales Representative SF Newspaper Co. Employee Review

1.0
4 May 2009
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

If you are new to the industry. If you really want to get newspaper or advertising experience. If you want to get advertising experience and they offer you a territory with a good amount of existing revenue already established. If you have received and offer and are allowed to interview some of their existing employees before deciding on the position.

Cons

They do a great job misrepresenting the income potential by advertising six-figure income for advertising reps when only one rep in the whole company earns that. There is just something about The Examiner that the end user (advertisers) just dont like or respect; changing that perception is a very difficult thing to overcome. Extremely high turn over rate- something like 30 people fired in less than a year including upper and mid management. The high turn over rate makes advertisers wary; right after a relationship is established the advertising representative is no longer working there and then the next rep has to start over from scratch. Sloppy work environment with dated technology makes for inefficient use of time. They tend to blame the employees for lack of revenue when it is actually The Examiner's inability to evolve into the modern world.....they will never really know what potential they could have had because they never listen the employee's feedback....employees are the people who are on the ground-level listening to the advertisers needs, wants and pains every single day, learn from them dont just dispose of them. Also, since you have to pay for your own benefits at The Examiner, shop around outside of what they offer and you can pay less per month for better benefits.

Explore other reviews about SF Newspaper Co.

4.0
1 June 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

love the staff I worked with

Cons

need more peeps of color

2.0
9 Aug 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Content is very minimally edited. Editors seldom suggest topics. This isn't a good business model, but it provides a lot of creative freedom. Pre-Clint Reilly Acquisition, the staff was mostly pleasant to work with.

Cons

Carly Schwartz was the editor in chief in my time here, and she had broad influence over the company as a c-level executive. She champions herself a survivor of her own depression and addiction issues, and she lets you know about it in social media posts and writings. Her career history boasts about projects she appears to have all started and then departed: a newsroom at Huffington Post, Google, a program in Panama, and editor-in-chief at SF Examiner. Save for the latter, she won't hesitate to let you know some work mentioned in this illustrious career history was carried out while depressed and under the influence. She has overcome, and she needs you to know. This wouldn't have been so disastrous as a personality affect, except that instead of editing stories, she simply cut them from publication and then fired the freelancers. This did happen with me, but also nearly everyone else I heard about during the company's transition. The newspaper had recently been acquired by Clint Reilly Communications, and in its defense: It very much feels normal practice to replace a current team with one you trust instead. In Carly's reign, however, this was done with exactly zero warning and one "thank you" emailed by a subordinate. She would later tell me my writing wasn't good enough. Getting a critique is never the worst thing, but having someone lie to you as that being the reason for termination is, well... you're a special human being, Carly. Lest we forget the title includes "editor." I feel like actual editing and mentorship are skills this person never acquired. Admittedly I'm putting two stars here because I enjoyed the editorial team pre-Clint Reilly acquisition. They weren't perfect by any stretch, and the pay was abominably bad. But they also kept their heads down and simply tried to put out a good newspaper. They communicated when there was time to do so.

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