Breaking News/General Assignment Reporter
Breaking News / General Assignment reporter
This is a fast-paced reporting position in America’s best beach town on Florida’s west coast,
Bradenton -- known for its old Florida history, only an hour from Tampa and half hour from St. Pete.
It promises a mix of breaking news and enterprise. From crime to courts to stories on diverse communities, this is a position that requires flexibility and promises the opportunity to cover some of the biggest stories in the region.
The successful candidate can move fast when news breaks while producing larger stories that make a difference in the lives of our readers by holding officials accountable and unearthing the impact of their actions.
It requires a demonstrated commitment to fairness and accuracy, in fact and in tone, and a strong grounding in journalism ethics. And like all journalists at the Bradenton Herald, you must demonstrate the desire and skills to build audience loyalty, engagement and growth around compelling public service journalism.
You are expected to not only have the ability to build sources and ferret out facts, but frame, write, produce and promote a story via search and social media to ensure that it reaches and resonates with our readers. It will require a demonstrated commitment to change -- to constantly
adapting to the ever-evolving ways in which readers seek out and interact with journalism.
And it will require enthusiastic participation in ongoing conversations about what’s working and what’s not -- and an equally enthusiastic commitment to adapting accordingly.
The ability to interview sources in English and Spanish is a plus. The position could include early morning, evening and/or weekend hours.
Those conversations involve evaluating stories based on audience and mission to determine whether a story idea is worth pursuing:
On audience:
● Who cares about this (or who should)?
● Is this a big enough group to make the idea worth pursuing the way it is framed?
● Is there a way to extend/expand interest in this subject or information to make the group big enough?
● If the group is small, is it influential enough to allow the story to have significant impact?
On mission:
● Will the story break news that holds leaders or institutions accountable?
● Will the story break news that makes a concrete difference in the community?
● Will the story tell readers how something will directly affect their lives or the lives of their families or friends?
● Will the story use extraordinary, revelatory storytelling to help readers understand a consequential societal issue in new ways?
● Will the story (or sometimes a series of quick hits in the cases of breaking news) attract an extraordinary amount of readership or engagement because it is of great interest and/or value to our readers for other reasons?
Minimum requirements:
● At least 2 years of professional reporting experience.
● Strong writing and reporting skills and excellent news judgment
● Unwavering commitment to accurate, ethical journalism
● Demonstrated ability to use social media platforms to reach audiences
● Fluency in the science of readership and engagement, including an understanding of how to use analytics such as page views, time on site, referral sources and “shares and likes” to help determine which stories resonate with which audiences
● A demonstrated ability to tell stories using a variety of tools and platforms, including video
● A demonstrated ability to learn new skills and technologies, including content management systems; social media platforms; video editing software; analytics tools; and any emerging storytelling tools and platforms
● Strong interpersonal skills, including empathy and the ability to take and give constructive criticism. The new workflows require constant conversations between reporters and editors and between reporters and their audience as a story evolves.
● Demonstrated ability to work comfortably in a job that will be fast-paced, data-driven, shaped constantly by feedback and experimentation and always evolving.
Generous salary and benefits available
The Bradenton Herald is an equal opportunity employer