Communities Reporter, South Dallas County

COMMUNITIES REPORTER, SOUTH DALLAS COUNTY

KERA, the public media company of North Texas, is seeking an enterprising and ambitious Communities Reporter – South Dallas County to join the KERA News team.

Serving the country's fourth-largest media market, KERA reaches more than 5 million people monthly through KERA TV, KERA News, KXT, WRR and The Denton Record-Chronicle as well through national shows Think and From the Top. For more than 65 years, North Texans have turned to KERA as a destination for community engagement and lifelong learning.

As we seek to recognize and reflect our audience and communities, we encourage applicants from all backgrounds and points of view to consider employment opportunities at KERA.

The Communities Reporter, South Dallas County is a full-time position that is part of KERA’s growing newsroom. North Texas is a business-centric hub home to a booming population. The Communities Reporter will cover news, developments and trends in the suburbs and diverse communities across southern Dallas County. The ideal candidate is a thoughtful and experienced reporter with a passion for elevating people’s voices.

This person must balance policy knowledge with human-centered reporting mindful of equity issues as they report on challenges, progress and solutions in our suburban communities.

We’re looking for a strong audio and digital reporter who’s comfortable going live on the radio. The person in this role must be versatile, productive and resilient, with an ability to write, voice and produce quick-turn daily stories as well as dive into bigger-picture feature reporting — all while remaining firmly rooted in the ethics and standards of public media. We expect this person to write with depth and nuance about complex community issues that have a real impact in South Dallas County and the wider region.

This is a great opportunity for a reporter with stellar ideas and strong journalistic experience. The South Dallas County Communities reporter will write and produce everything from daily news spots to in-depth features on all KERA’s platforms: radio, video, social media and keranews.org. KERA leads The Texas Newsroom — a regional news hub of public radio stations across the state and NPR — so the reporter’s stories will air locally, statewide and often nationally.

This position is classified as FLSA non-exempt, is eligible for overtime and reports to the Specialty Beats Editor.

• Tell stories about communities around South Dallas County through the people who live there.
• Create engaging multimedia stories from interviews, research, data and analysis. Find creative ways to report on issues that touch everyone. The goal:
  High impact with deep substance.
• Stay on top of major news, identify trends, and develop deep knowledge of policies and how they affect local communities.
• Build and maintain a community around the beat, including industry leaders, elected officials, experts, researchers, and community members. – There will be an emphasis on community engagement and on-the-ground reporting.
• Produce a mix of daily news and enterprise and investigative stories.
• Fill in on newscasts as needed.
• Work collaboratively as part of KERA’s team and with partners across the state to build expertise, contribute compelling story ideas and experiment with innovative storytelling techniques.
• Cover breaking news in North Texas and beyond, sometimes outside the scope of the beat. This includes a rotating on-call schedule and work outside the standard 9-5 business hours.
• Develop distinctive audio and digital stories focused on the KERA listening area, with statewide and national context and impact.
• Actively participate in KERA fundraising campaigns.

• Work in a manner that is consistent with KERA’s mission, vision and values; and maintain compliance with all company policies and procedures
• Perform additional duties as assigned

This list of job duties is not exhaustive and is subject to regular reviews and updates

• 3 or more years of professional journalism experience
• Passion for community/solutions journalism
• Strong audio reporting and…