Foodie Beat Reporter

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The Tri-City Herald is looking for an enterprising and versatile foodie beat reporter to join our award-winning newsroom to cover the restaurant industry and the food and wine scene in one of the Pacific Northwest’s most diverse and fast-growing communities. We are part of McClatchy Media Company, a digitally driven company focused on innovation, with newsrooms in 30 communities in the United States.

At the Herald, our journalism is all about local. We pride ourselves on breaking stories first and producing impactful, accountability-driven journalism that serves our community. While this beat does include stories about a new place to eat or the closing of an old favorite, we're also looking for stories about the entrepreneurial spirit and the dreams that connect people through food and wine.

You’ll also dig into the critical role of our expansive agricultural, food processing and wine industries in developing food products. And you’ll cover food-related topics, such as festivals, new trends and cultural influences on food. This beat is fertile ground for a resourceful reporter eager to build a following by publishing often, typically daily. You are right for this role if you understand that frequent, consistent publishing builds habit in readers, who come to trust that they can depend on you to deliver each day, giving them a reason to come back and engage.

• Focus on stories that build readership
• Engage in multimedia storytelling
• Demonstrate speed, competitiveness and SEO savvy through aggregating and storytelling tools
• Live in the Tri-Cities.

McClatchy Media’s journalists are expected to take advantage of opportunities to ethically harness and leverage artificial intelligence and other automation to enhance and elevate their work and to find efficiencies that free them to focus on source-building and high quality, deeply reported journalism.

This position will be based in our Kennewick, Wash., office and may involve working nights and/or weekends. The Tri-Cities -- Kennewick, Richland and Pasco -- is a growing community of 320,000 in southeast Washington. The area’s average of 300 days of sun, make it popular for hiking and biking, as well as fishing and boating. We’re also in the heart of the state’s agricultural and wine country, with 200 wineries within 50 miles.

The anticipated base pay range for this position is between $24.04 and $31.25 per hour. Individual base pay may vary within that range depending on job-related knowledge, skills, experience, department equity and relevant education.

• College degree or equivalent work experience.
• 1-3 years of reporting experience.
• Strong writing skills, excellent news judgment and a demonstrated ability to “see the story” that is going to matter to readers.
• Unwavering commitment to accurate, ethical journalism.
• Ability to build source networks and bring a constant flow of story ideas.
• Ability to work collaboratively to aggressively tackle stories.
• A track record for innovation, learning and using new skills and technologies, especially AI.
• Ability to shoot video and photos on scene when warranted.
• Comfort with a job that will be demanding, fast-paced and constantly evolving.
• Ability to work with data, public records and business reports.
• Must have reliable transportation. Must have valid driver’s license and vehicle insurance required.

As a journalist at McClatchy, you will join a supportive, flexible, collaborative team. McClatchy strives to be an employer of choice, and our benefits package is made with this goal in mind. With a focus on health, well-being, wealth and daily life, our package options include healthcare coverage for employees and their families, financial protection from expected and unexpected expenses, multiple no-cost wellness resources and even coverage for four-legged friends.

Our overall benefits package also includes a 401(k) with…