Heat City

Randy Miller

Even though no deal has been formalized to save the Pulitzer Prize-winning East Valley Tribune, a potential buyer is already telling its employees to reapply for their jobs.

Staffers of the Mesa newspaper received an email on Friday containing a job application [PDF] for Thirteenth Street Media, the Colorado company reportedly hoping to buy the ailing publication. The company has said it would keep “a significant” number of employees – but not all of them – if it buys the paper.

The email also told employees that Thirteenth Street Media’s owner, Randy Miller, would be in town this week to decide which staffers to keep if the deal goes through.

While those revelations may have been surprising enough for employees since the deal with Miller is nowhere near official, the real shockers came in the job application itself.

First, Miller asked employees which position they are applying for – a problem because Miller has not said which positions might be available.

Later, Miller asks applicants to include three references, but he adds one instruction: “Please do not include relatives or former employers.”

No former employers, you say? So who does he want listed? Friends? Community leaders? A journalist’s sources? It’s unclear.

Finally, Miller asks the question that every employee hoping to keep his or her job amid a recession dreads: “If your application receives favorable consideration, what salary/hourly rate would you require?”

But here’s the real kicker. At no point in the four-page application does Miller ask to see examples of the employee’s past work, a staple in the journalism world. He doesn’t ask the reporters to attach their past stories, photographers their photos or designers their, well, page designs.

Given his track record in Arizona of course, it’s unclear whether Miller is even interested in such things.

The email told interested employees to reapply for their jobs by Wednesday at noon.

[Full disclaimer: I am a former staff reporter for the East Valley Tribune.]