The Spokesman-Review is seeking an experienced journalist to report on children and education. Spokane County has more than 70,000 students attending its K-12 public schools. The successful candidate for this beat will have the clips and references exemplifying great reporting and writing skills. They will turn a variety of stories that explore the next generation’s promise and challenges and ensure readers their tax dollars are wisely spent by continuing the newspaper’s legacy of watchdog and investigative reporting.
Our education reporter will be a member of a dynamic and aggressive reporting team led by seasoned editors with decades of experience. Expect to be an important contributor to the daily front page while finding in-depth stories for the Sunday edition.
What you’ll do:
- Prepare accurate, fair, balanced and carefully researched stories and multimedia posts to meet assigned deadlines.
- Build strong sources within the identified ‘beat’, extending beyond just official sources. Be able to keep the beat fresh with new ideas. Stay ahead of stories, anticipate changes, and write/publish those stories ahead of competitors. Clearly understand the beat to write with authority.
- Demonstrate appropriate focus on stories that matter to our audience and to the public record, using identified Key Performance Indicators made available to help you to improve story relevance to audience.
- Able to stay ahead and out front of the competition, local or national competitors, specifically on the primary ‘beat’ with regards to key daily and enterprise stories.
- Willing and able to localize a national story when appropriate and do it quickly when needed.
- Write at least seven (7) stories a week, with at least five (5) that are published in our print edition. Maintain a standard of at least 8,000 weekly online page views.
- Finished stories should be clear and concise; self-edit for clean copy that can be posted quickly when needed for competitive reasons.
- Able to take photos, shoot simple video or record audio – or anything that can easily be done with a mobile phone – that will help tell the story or serve our readers; not relying solely on staff photographers for mug shots, especially those that will only run once.
- Able to grow the total size of your journalism’s audience; ensuring stories have appropriate headlines, especially for the website, adapting to the changes in circulation and growth opportunities with our digital audience. Key indicators are the amount of times readers continue to turn to your stories and the amount of time your audience spends with your stories.
- Utilize art possibilities for every story, both in print and online, to increase and improve audience engagement; pull in graphics, design, photo and online team members so they can gain a better understanding of the story, when appropriate.
- Demonstrate ability to seek out and act quickly on story opportunities on all platforms used by our news organization. Effectively follow through on stories, including interacting in a professional capacity with readers after publication through comments or other engaging tools. This means using those avenues to find follow-up information and expand on stories.
- Utilize social media and other promotional tools to maximize audience exposure to your journalism ensuring covered stories are viewed and shared more than competitor stories.
- Pitch stories for newspaper’s front page and homepage when appropriate.
- Promote and participation in events designed to promote public awareness and readership of The Spokesman-Review.
- Participate and provide positive experiences at company events as a liaison with key audiences/stakeholders such as community members, readers, service providers, donors, etc
- Other duties as assigned.
What you’ll contribute to our team:
- Bachelor’s degree (B.A.) in Journalism from a four-year college or university, or equivalent experience.
- Valid Driver’s License
- Create a positive attitude that cultivates a sense of camaraderie and chemistry in our newsroom that helps us not only achieve our goals but exceed them. This positivity is essential as we focus on helping our newspaper go forward with strategies aimed at our longtime survival
- Proficient in the use of a computer and smartphone, including use of Newsgate and Django content management systems
- Demonstrate ability to create hyperlinks, attach photos, understand SEO and Key Performance Indicators
- Ability to use a smartphone to file stories and multimedia from the field and to stay current with news events
- Demonstrate social media skills on Twitter, Facebook, and any emerging social media networks to both promote and enhance your journalism
- Regular attendance is required as well as punctuality for assigned meetings, work shifts, and interviews.
- Ability to work in adverse conditions and unusual schedules when news breaks
- Must understand and uphold the standards, ethics, and mission of journalism at The Spokesman-Review on all platforms
- Premium on organizational skills, able to meet changing deadlines, deal with multiple stories at once, keep supervisors abreast of developments, and work with other staff members on stories
- Read The Spokesman-Review, both in print and online, and stay current with all relative news sources
- Maintain a high degree of professionalism in representing The Spokesman-Review, always striving for fairness and accuracy
Salary: $42,000 to $47,000
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