Jim Jenks

Newspaper: The Philadelphia Inquirer

Career background: I often joke that the only job I haven't had is in sports talk radio. I have 19 years experience in newspapers, including being sports editor at the Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, Calif.) and The Inquirer. After a brief sports writing career, I moved inside to the management track, working my up through the Tampa Tribune, Hartford Courant and Newsday before getting the Santa Rosa job. I was among the first of my newspaper peers to see how important the Internet was and jumped the newspaper ship to go work for Starwave Corp. and Paul Allen. While I was there, I was the founding editor of NASCAR.com, NFL.com and the first superbowl.com. When Starwave was sold to Disney, I was made executive editor of ESPN.com and held that position for almost three years, moving to Bristol, Conn. in the process. I made the transition to ESPN television, becoming the Director of Research for ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNEWS, where I was three years. Journalism was still in my blood and so was the need to live near a city. (Sorry, Hartford.)

APSE activities: Mid-Atlantic Region chair. Host of the 2004 APSE national convention. On the Writers Group committee as liaison to NBA and USBWA.

Up close and personal: Married to Valerie with four children, Ryan (18), Tyler (11), Kyle (9) and Lily (6). Hobbies include anything related to golf and finding warm weather.

Quotable: The focus of APSE needs to be the strong development of the regions. Most of the regions are untapped when it comes to membership, ideas and small-paper equality in the organization.

Fun factoid: 26 years in the business, nine newspapers, two Internet companies and one broadcast beomoth later, I can't think of anything else I would do different. Now, about selling my soul for a talk radio gig ...

 Back to index