Innovation Reporter

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Job Title

Business Title

Staff Writer

Education

Bachelor's Degree

Location

Downtown Dallas (TDMN) - Dallas, TX 75201 US (Primary)

Salary Grade

Job Type

Full-Time

Exemption Type

Non-Exempt

Travel

Job Description

The Dallas Morning News is looking for an Innovation Reporter to join our award-winning newsroom. This role focuses on executing experiments in storytelling and audience building, working directly with our Director of Experimentation and Projects to develop new strategies to help connect our journalism with the right readers. The ideal candidate will be an enthusiastic digital advocate who is eager to cover multiple topics and try new storytelling concepts.

One quarter, this reporter may be focused on transportation. Another could mean writing inspiring stories about people in our community. The experimentation will derive from intense collaboration with Audience leaders and company stakeholders to plan short-term sprints testing concepts to expand our reach. Recent experiments include juicing weather coverage, adding Statbeat to high school football coverage and launching a Linked In newsletter.

This is a fast-paced role and requires a journalist who thrives on readers’ needs and interests, engaging directly with them in person or online. The right candidate will be comfortable writing multiple daily stories, a team player, a top-notch collaborator, a strong digital storyteller and a time-management maven. Audience engagement and analytics interest are a must. The Dallas Morning News believes a collaborative and inclusive work environment is essential to a thriving workplace for all.

We are in search of a diverse group of candidates.

• Produce quick-turn stories in user-friendly formats
• Flexibly move between assignments to test audience ideas
• Work collaboratively in a deadline-driven newsroom environment
• Write engagingly and accurately on North Texas
• Use social media as a tool to develop story ideas and respond to what our audience is already talking about
• Build stories with links, tags, SEO best practices, attractive web headlines and multimedia when appropriate
• Monitor analytics for your stories and work with editors to suggest approaches for improvement
• Collaborate with Audience editors and our Photo team to improve the digital presentation of your stories
• Work with editors to evolve and shape your coverage to deepen engagement with our digital audience

• Applicants should have at least one year of related reporting experience
• Valid driver's license and registered vehicle to travel to assignments.

• A passion for journalism that helps readers in their daily lives
• Demonstrated strong reporting and writing skills
• Good news judgment, accuracy, speed, grammatical precision, a flair for headlines, energy, curiosity and an eye toward digital success
• Ability to use social media for news gathering and audience development
• Ability to handle multiple stories at the same time
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills
• Understanding of platforms and audiences and ability to compose stories appropriate to the platform of publication (e.g., voice, style, formatting, hyperlinks)
• Collaborating effectively with team members and across newsroom departments
• Willingness to cover a variety of topics
• Familiarity with Texas
• Fluency in Spanish is an advantage

• Bachelor’s degree in journalism or a related field

With 2,500 employees across the nation, Hearst Newspapers (HNP) represents a network of 28 daily and 50 weekly publications, including the Austin American-Statesman, Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Express-News, San Francisco Chronicle and Times Union (Albany). Our portfolio also includes several top digital-only news and lifestyle sites such as Chron., CT Insider, MySA and SFGATE, along with marketing services businesses like Medium Giant and entertainment brands such as King Features Syndicate.

At HNP, we’re investing in new and innovative ways to tell stories — growing newsrooms, diversifying tools and evolving platforms — to support the millions of people who trust us each month to help them make…