Reporter

Job description:
Local Reporter

IMPORTANT: DO NOT "EASY-APPLY" FOR THIS ROLE!

READ THE DAILY CATCH (The Daily Catch .org) BEFORE YOU APPLY.

NOTE:

THIS ROLE IS BASED IN THE HUDSON VALLEY, NOT RED HOOK, BROOKLYN. YOU MUST BE WILLING TO LIVE WITHIN 20 MILES OF RED HOOK, NY 12571.

Mid-Hudson Valley, NY (Red Hook, NY)

The Daily Catch, an award-winning independent, online, non-profit newspaper serving the Hudson Valley, N.Y. towns of Rhinebeck, Red Hook, and Clinton (2 hours north of New York City), seeks a full-time staff reporter to cover a range of news and feature assignments – including K-12 education, health, business, and some general assignment. Available:
Immediate.

Duties:

• Report and write evening meetings for the Village of Tivoli and the boards of education in Red Hook and Rhinebeck, interviewing participants and writing news stories.
• Report and write feature, enterprise, and trend stories, related to Bard College, local business and health care – as assigned or on your own initiative, with editor-in-chief and managing editor guidance and approval.
• Take on periodic general assignment stories as assigned by editor and managing editor.
• Use social media tools, as well as official government and local commercial websites, to find stories.
• Produce weekly “beat notes” detailing story plans and ideas for the week ahead.
• Take photographs with a company-supplied camera for all stories you report.
• Develop ideas for visuals to support your stories: graphs and charts, maps, etc.

Requirements:

• Strong, accurate reporting and note-taking skills.
• Excellent writing skills (with accurate grammar).
• Strong organizational skills.
• Intense curiosity.
• Personality to work efficiently, independently, and remotely.
• Excellent time management skills.
• B.A. or B.S. in any field.
• 1-2 solid years of journalistic work experience and clips to show it (may include internships, freelancing or news reporting work on a college newspaper).
• A car and a driver's license.
• A laptop computer and a mobile phone.

Who Will Succeed in This Job: This is a terrific opportunity for the journalist who is a true self-starter, eager for growth, and excited by hyperlocal news. While we meet weekly as a team, successful reporters at The Daily Catch must be independent enough to work remotely on many days while having regular in-person check-ins with the editor and managing editor.

You should want to work hard, engage with a wide array of reporting assignments, and feel eager to avail yourself of the expertise and attention of two award-winning editors. A stint with The Daily Catch will give young reporters with 1-3 years' experience the bedrock training for a lifetime as a journalist and the tools, clips, and confidence to build a satisfying career.

About The Daily Catch: We are an award-winning non-profit, non-partisan news source with a fabulous reputation for incisive and exciting journalism devoted to town government coverage, features, and enterprise. Run by award-winning journalists with decades of experience, we have taken our communities by storm in the five-plus years we've been publishing. We won a prestigious Press Forward grant for 2025 and 2026, and we have also announced additional major gifts.

About Our Area: Red Hook, Rhinebeck, and Clinton are rural communities of rolling farms, two hours north of New York City, that are very popular NYC weekend home locales. Red Hook is home to Bard College and a lively food and music scene. Rhinebeck, to our south, is a historic Hudson Valley village with an Amtrak station serving the Northeast corridor, including New York City and Boston.

The area has a growing immigrant population and overlooks the magnificent Hudson River. We are home to great hiking, cycling, kayaking, rock climbing,…