Staff Writer

Virginia Media Group, inclusive of The Virginian-Pilot, Daily Press, The Virginia Gazette, The Coast, Style Weekly and other publications, reach more than 750,000 local readers every week, making us the region’s most widely trusted source of news and information. As we continue building our exciting digital future, it’s our mission to serve our community by delivering the truth every day, engaging our readers and driving results for our advertisers. 

Develop, report, analyze and create original news and feature stories in text and other forms, including, when appropriate, video, audio, podcasts, Facebook Live events, simple graphics, etc. Besides having strong writing and reporting skills, reporters should be or become fluent in: basics of making photos and videos and making them available for publication on the site; aggregating content or writing quick briefs, when necessary; assessing audience through basic metrics; and publishing on other platforms such as social media. Reporters must possess initiative, creativity, good news judgment, attention to detail, self-direction, the ability to multitask and meet deadlines, the ability and desire to work with a team, a strong command of the English language and a commitment to accuracy. They should have a basic understanding of digital trends, social media and audience metrics.

Major responsibilities:

• Being fast and accurate: Always striving to provide readers with what we know, when we know it. Be transparent about sources of information.
• Employing creativity every day to conceive of stories, produce or secure visuals, get sources to cooperate, corroborate facts and present information to readers in the most relevant, interesting way
• Maximizing audience engagement with the site through use of various storytelling formats, including photo galleries, video, aggregation and a variety of layouts.
• Creating news and features content that is strong on grammar, punctuation, clarity and accuracy
• Taking the initiative to fact-check, run background checks and confirm information before publication
• Delivering on time with minimal to moderate supervision and editing
• Cultivating beats, where appropriate, and sources
• Uncovering and proposing exclusive stories on newsworthy events and trends
• Contributing story ideas several times a week, including identifying and following trends outside assigned beat or topic areas, and informing supervisors of possible story ideas arising from trends
• Employing creativity to present all information in easy-to-read, visually appealing, informative and engaging format
• Conceiving, creating, editing, aggregating or producing various types of content. Depending on department, this may include videos, maps, timelines, multimedia, documents, graphics, photo galleries, gifs and social aggregations.
• Taking or securing photos and making basic videos and making them available in the content management system
• Measuring performance of one’s own digital content through audience engagement metrics and working with audience team develop tactics and strategies to build audience
• Working with data and visuals teams, as appropriate, to deepen reporting and produce data-visualization content items
• Participating in production videos and live streaming with visuals department, as appropriate
• Striving to meet specific individual goals to be assigned on a regular basis by supervisor

Basic foundation skills:

• Professional-level grasp of proper grammar, spelling, punctuation
• Ability to write accurately, with clarity, without bias
• Knowledge of libel laws and adherence to the Tribune’s and Editorial’s codes of ethics
• Adherence to the tribune and editorial codes of ethics
• Strong work ethic and entrepreneurial spirit
• Competitive instincts
• Ability to multitask and perform in a fast-paced deadline driven environment.
• Ability to work independently when required while at the same time operate efficiently in a team dynamic
• Up-to-date skills on various digital platforms
• Familiarity with current events and newsmakers
• Quick-turnaround skills
• Basic familiarity with analytics and ability to translate data into tactics and strategies, including ability to use metrics from Chartbeat, Adobe Analytics, social and other tools.
• Knowledge of Facebook, Twitter and other social platforms and ability to develop/follow best practices for social.
• Basic knowledge of SEO best practices and ability to research SEO and appropriately populate fields and headlines.
• Willingness to work evenings/weekends and irregular hours.