Over summer quarter through October, all online applications for The Watchdog were not received by the staff, anyone who applied during that time would not have been contacted by the paper.
Lisa Salkind, the current advertising manager at The Watchdog talked about the issue:
“The Watchdog’s online job application process was functioning as it should be except for one important thing: When a student applied online and hit ‘submit application’ – that application was being forwarded to our old faculty adviser’s email address. So no one who is actually working at The Watchdog was getting the applications. […] Our old faculty adviser, Amy Miller, is not working currently after having a baby in July.”
The problem has since then been fixed and according to Salkind, the applications are now being forwarded to Aaron Day, the current faculty advisor of The Watchdog.
Editor-in-Chief Lauren Putnam talked about open positions, “right now we are looking for as many reporters as we can get and we need one copy editor. We are already full on graphic designers, photographers and section editors.”
Putnam explained the hiring process by saying:
“It all starts off with the application, which will now reach me directly and I usually respond within a day of getting any application. When we hire photographers, we usually ask to see a portfolio or ask to have people audition, where they’ll go out and take a test picture so we can see what skill level they’re at. Copy editors are required to take a copy editing test and the senior copy editor will grade the test and it’ll go from there. For staff reporters, we assign an audition article where the applicants will go out and conduct interviews and craft a whole entire article as if they were already on staff and after we receive it, we copy edit it and see where the writer is as far as knowledge of AP style goes. We are willing to work with any writer who really wants to work with us but it is ideal that those who apply for the position of staff reporter kind of understand AP style and know how to flow their writing well.”
Brian Litterell, a copy editor and web editor at The Watchdog, fixed the issue and commented, explaining:
“We became aware of this problem several weeks after I took over the ‘Web and Media Assistant’ title from Brian Tockey around the 25th of October. While working to improve the form I noticed that Amy Miller was the only person the applications were being sent to. Now, Aaron Day and Lauren Putnam receive the applications and will respond to the sender if they provide a valid email address.”
Students who are interested in working for the Watchdog can visit https://thewatchdogonline.com/work-for-us and fill out the application or visit the Watchdog newsroom in C206.