Reporter - High School Sports

Posted Monday 16 February 2026 at 5:00 am

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The Herald‑Tribune
, part of the USA TODAY Network, is seeking a reporter to join our sports team to create impactful stories in Manatee and Sarasota counties, on a strong high school sports scene, professional golf and other topics of interest as they arise.

This position requires someone who thinks digital first and will focus on the USA Today Florida Sports Network’s audience, engagement and revenue goals. Multimedia skills including the ability to produce and edit video and engage audience on social media, especially Facebook, Instagram and X, is a must. The candidate must be comfortable analyzing and interpreting metrics to help make coverage decisions and use SEO techniques to drive audience through Google and search engines.

The reporter must build sources, break news, create top‑shelf enterprise and tell compelling stories for our digital audience and to fulfill our Sunday Project Blue Print goals. This position will focus on making high school sports, especially football, into a mandatory experience for local and statewide fans, both on and off platform. This writer will play a leading role in strategy development and identifying innovative techniques on the beat.

Those techniques include but are not exclusive to rankings, athlete and team of the week polls, players lists and all‑area teams.

The writer will work with the USA Today Network Florida team to grow coverage throughout the state including with polls, recruiting and trending stories. The writer must also be adaptable to handle other duties assigned by an editor as well as adjust to initiatives and strategies and implement them as they are introduced by management.

• Be the source of sports information in Manatee and Sarasota County.
• The ability to report and write compelling stories that serve our existing audience and helps attract new consumers.
• Timely budgeting is a must for digital and print planning. Presto packages must be created as soon as a story is assigned by an editor or conceived by the writer with slugs, budget lines and Presto IDs added to the Herald‑Tribune story budget.
• Passionate about getting the information to the audience first, and excited about using all the various platforms to connect with audience including video and social media.
• Adjust, adapt and suggest best practices to help the company achieve audience, engagement and revenue goals.
• Meeting all deadlines assigned by editors and planners and understanding digital and print have different deadlines for content. Reaching deadlines allows editor and planners to optimize content’s reach on multiple platforms including digital, print and social.
• Self‑starter with the ability to develop relationships through in‑person interaction, phone calls, text messaging and social media.
• Understanding the collaborative nature of journalism and willing and eager to…