Sports Reporter GA/Marlins
What's breaking with the Marlins, Dolphins, Hurricanes and Heat? Who's hurt or limping? What are the inside moves and decisions? Our General Assignment/Marlins backup beat writer should be one of the first to report on personnel, trades, developments; insights about what's going on with the team in the locker room and the front office; conversations with fans about what they want to know. Player moves, including trades and trade rumors, clashes, strengths and weaknesses; major ongoing story narratives, depending on what happens on and off the field.
Responsibilities:
This position reports to sports editors
2018 traffic goal: 3,200,000
The reporter in this beat must have 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 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.
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 story telling 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:
Strong writing and reporting skills and excellent news judgment
Unwavering commitment to accurate, ethical journalism
Demonstrated ability to use social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter 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; Omniture, CrowdTangle and other 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