State Government Reporter

Few things affect West Virginians’ lives more than decisions made by state government. But West Virginians need political reporting that focuses less on the people making those decisions and more on the people who have to live with them.

Mountain State Spotlight is looking for a curious, tenacious reporter to cover power and state government in West Virginia
.

This is not a traditional statehouse job.

Our mission is not to chronicle what happened at the Capitol today. We want a reporter who asks bigger questions:
What problems are West Virginians asking their government to solve? What is government doing about them? Who has the power to make things better? Who benefits from the choices government makes, and who pays the price?

You’ll report on the Legislature, governor’s office, executive agencies, courts, elections and the people and organizations trying to influence them. But the institutions aren’t the point. West Virginians are.

That means getting out of the Capitol and talking to people affected by the decisions made there. It means translating budgets, bills, regulations and court decisions into what they mean for a family, a worker or a community. It means following the money, examining campaign spending and lobbying, testing politicians’ statements against evidence and returning months or years later to see whether government programs actually delivered what officials promised.

And it means resisting the urge to treat every press conference, committee meeting, campaign attack or legislative maneuver as a story simply because it happened.

We want you to use those events to find stories
: to notice something that doesn’t make sense, develop sources, identify patterns, dig into public records and data and discover things West Virginians otherwise would not know.

Some of those stories will take a day. Some will take a few weeks. Some will become major investigations.

We want a reporter who can do all three.

West Virginia is a small state facing serious challenges and expanding news deserts, but that creates enormous opportunities for journalists who want their reporting to matter. Mountain State Spotlight is building a newsroom around accountability journalism that helps West Virginians understand the forces shaping their lives.

• Cover power, not just politics. Report on how decisions get made in West Virginia state government, who influences those decisions and what happens to people as a result.
• Hold state government accountable for results. Follow laws, programs, spending and promises beyond the announcement or bill signing. Find out whether they worked, who benefited, who didn’t and why.
• Make government understandable. Explain complicated legislation, budgets, regulations, court decisions and political processes in plain language without stripping away their importance or complexity.
• Follow the money. Use budgets, contracts, campaign-finance reports, lobbying disclosures and other records to understand who has influence over government and where public money goes.
• Get outside the Statehouse. Build sources throughout West Virginia and report directly from communities affected by government decisions. Our state-government journalism should reflect the experiences and information needs of people across the state, not simply the conversations happening in Charleston.
• Develop enterprise and investigative stories. Treat legislative sessions, interim meetings, audits, lawsuits, elections, agency actions and tips as starting points for questions that can lead to distinctive accountability journalism.
• Help reinvent election coverage. Give West Virginians useful information about candidates, campaign money, political power and the stakes of elections rather…