Tampa Bay Biz Journal seeks a banking and finance reporter

The Tampa Bay Business Journal is hiring a reporter to cover the dynamic banking, finance, and public companies beat. Tampa Bay is experiencing explosive growth in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and this reporter will be in the thick of it.

The TBBJ’s banking and finance beat leader will work with a scrappy, collaborative and energetic team to break news around major transactions involving the area’s biggest employers, national and community banks, credit unions, the region’s largest public and privately held companies, law firms and CPAs. The beat will focus on all things money, including a white-hot mergers and acquisitions climate, private equity, disruption, competition, and post-pandemic recovery.

We believe that businesses don’t make business news, people do. That means there is a huge emphasis on building relationships from day one — to know and establish a rapport with top power players, and market leaders at regional banks, law and accounting firms and with company CEOs.

This reporter will be expected to break news ahead of the competition and build a solid pipeline of enterprise ideas and relentlessly grow their source base.

Our content is sought after by our growing audience. It gives our readers a leg up on their competitors, connects them with decision-makers and delineates growth strategies that work from those that don’t. This often entails finding news at city halls, county courthouses or other public entities and then tracking down the private-sector sources who know most about the business ramifications of what’s in play.

The Business Journal writes and reports stories that readers can’t find elsewhere and are willing to pay for.

Skills

• Proven excellence in reporting and writing

• Desire and ability to break news and to identify newsworthy events and sources

• Strong analytical and investigative-interviewing skills

• Ability to work both independently and collaboratively

• Ability to relate comfortably to a wide range of people, in person, on the phone and virtually

• A clear drive to develop sources and build audience

• Solid understanding of news writing, journalistic ethics and story structure

• Ability to leverage relationships with sources to deliver content that differentiates the organization from competitors

• Multimedia skills, including video, photos, broadcast, on-camera, helpful

Duties

Business Journal reporters are expected to contribute shorter and long-form stories for the website and weekly paper. Here, reporters must own their beat and dictate day-to-day coverage. To bring in source-driven scoops, reporters are expected to be vigilant networkers and relationship managers. Our best stories come from people, not press releases. Scoops matter — a lot — and on top of that, readers demand to not only know what is happening but why and how. You break hard news that sometimes sources don’t want to be brought to light, but you never burn bridges.

The ideal candidate:

• Is a self-starter who is open to collaboration

• Writes with authority and flair

• Can develop a solid network of sources; keeps pushing for new sources

• Understands or is willing to learn the vernacular of the banking and finance industry

• Has a daily voice on social media and is willing to engage readers on LinkedIn

• Is comfortable with virtual work software such as Slack, Microsoft Teams and Zoom; and

• Is comfortable with mining data and public records

• Is comfortable with spreadsheets

• Is comfortable making and tracking public record requests and sees them as fertile ground for enterprise reporting

Experience

• 1-3 years of journalism experience

• Track record of building, maintaining and engaging a high-level audience in person, in print and online

• Social media mavens held in high regard

• A knowledge of banking, finance and public companies is a plus

Education

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent work experience

To apply, send clips, resume and a cover letter explaining how you would cover the beat to editor in chief Alexis Muellner at amuellner@bizjournals.com.