USA Today seeks econ development reporter in North Carolina

USA Today Network-Southeast is seeking an enterprise & data reporter to work in our growing Triad regional newsroom in North Carolina. This hybrid position is based in Asheboro, NC, and focuses on both daily economic development reporting and more broad data-related enterprise reporting.

Asheboro has moved fully into digital newsroom operations and is seeking a daily beat reporter who wants to report informative, interesting local stories that resonate with our online audiences and that advance the community conversation. This part of the role will involve self-driven, rapid, confident day-to-day journalism that extends our ongoing relationship with digital subscribers.

Stories often will involve economic development, future business prospects, land development, regulatory challenges and personal stories about people succeeding or failing as the underlying business outlook for the Piedmont shakes out. Our proprietary content management system is easy to use, and reporters mostly drive their own work as part of a quick collaborative team.

This is not simply a typical daily beat reporter role, though. We make time for enterprise work: it’s woven into the DNA of our newsroom.

Every month, you should expect to spend 40% of your time on enterprise reporting. You’ll need to scour for the great ideas. We’ll help you as you draft and publish. You will work with some partners on their stories, as a collaborator. Coaching entry-level or early-career reporters is a strength for us — we take pride in it.

This role is an excellent opportunity to learn, then later move up in the USA Today Network-Southeast. We see our job as providing the attentive investment in talent, and then acting as a farm team for larger newsrooms looking for great journalists. Of course, this part of North Carolina is a great place to live, so some people stay, and we give them new, challenging assignments.

We also are looking for someone who understands that the best reporting can reveal gaps in opportunity and fundamental wrongs or systemic bias in our midst. A portion of this reporter’s focus will be on using data, technology and old-fashioned reporting to explain the demographics of our changing nation and the disparities in opportunity that have divided us.

We recruit actively for diverse hiring in our newsrooms.

Responsibilities:

• Independent reporting. You will identify your own stories, find sources to tell you the things no one knows, analyze data, do the reporting, and write.
• Developing your own great beat ideas.
• Illuminating the complicated system mechanisms and political and organizational choices that have led to current racial, LGBTQA+, income and immigration status injustices.
• Listening to people sometimes overlooked by the media.
• Team projects. You will collaborate with reporters at our three Triad newspapers in Burlington, Lexington and Asheboro. We run it as a single newsroom, although the reader-facing brands and story selection details are specific to each market.
• Making great connections in the community, analyze the trends and connections between healthy people and healthy systems and good outcomes. Tell the resulting narratives in interesting ways. Wield data well.

Requirements:

• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in journalism or data-related field or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Proven track record of reporting, research or writing. Clear, powerful writing skill is a plus, although we are good at coaching writing.
• Fluid with multimedia and social tasks.
• Dogged reporter.
• Wide reader.
• Values diversity and can talk to everyone.

To apply, go here.