Bay Area News Group seeks a community news reporter

If you’re a dedicated local news journalist eager to tell your readers what’s happening in the community around them, you may be the next Reporter to join the Bay Area News Group and The Mercury News. We’re the Bay Area’s premier news organization, and we’re seeking a reporter to cover the West Valley area of Santa Clara County — focusing on the town of Los Gatos and the city of Saratoga, two wealthy communities confronting economic and ethnic change.

What you will do:

• Juggle multiple stories of varying complexity, from quick news posts under intense deadline pressure to daily news stories and longer-term enterprise or features
• Use the web and social media to report stories and to share them
• Focus on two widely circulated weekly publications, the Los Gatos Weekly-Times and Saratoga News, with opportunities to publish in the daily Mercury News and on our widely read website
• Tap into the successes and challenges of local government, from town councils to school boards, and keep a thumb on the pulse of engaged communities
• Be in your communities or in the Bay Area News Group’s San Jose office on weekdays, and write regularly, with a sense of place, to meet the demands of this audience
• You’ll also work with our community news team to generate and edit freelance pieces from these same areas

What you will bring:

• 2+ years of experience as a working journalist, preferably including at least some coverage of politics and government, breaking news, business and the environment
• Excellent news judgment and a drive to compete
• Knowledge of municipalities and local government
• Strong writing skills under deadline pressure
• Proficiency at using the web and social media to report stories and to share them
• Strong grammatical skills and a working knowledge of the Associated Press stylebook
• The skill to mine human sources, documents and data, including a facility for obtaining and using public records
• 4-year college degree (journalism or related fields)
• In our diverse region, facility with multiple languages is a plus

Must be located in the South Bay Area with weekly onsite expectations in San Jose.

The hourly wage is $28.00 – $32.00. 

For further details click here.