Business & Features General Assignment Reporter – Always Lancaster

Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association; Harrisburg (Dauphin County); On-site; USD 40,000 - 60,000; Full time

Job summary

The Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association is seeking a full-time Business & Features General Assignment Reporter in Harrisburg. This role requires creativity and adaptability to cover diverse topics in areas like home & garden, business trends, and entertainment.

The ideal candidate will excel in digital-first reporting, build authoritative sources, and actively engage with the audience on social media platforms to enhance storytelling.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in journalism, English, or mass communications is required.
• Proven knowledge and experience with current media creation tools.
• Solid understanding of news writing and journalistic ethics.

Responsibilities

• Produce daily and longer-range enterprise stories.
• Curate and aggregate content relevant to LancasterOnline's audience.
• Build a social media presence and engage with the audience.

Skills

News writing

Social media engagement

Journalistic ethics

Content creation tools

Education

Bachelor’s degree in journalism or related field

Tools

Digital and print content tools

Photo/video equipment

Job description

Business & Features General Assignment Reporter – Always Lancaster

Full-time

Description

The Business/Features GA reporter is a master of the ability to pivot and thrives on never doing the same story twice. This reporter is expected to pitch and research a variety of topics across the Work and Play beats, including home & garden, entertainment, business trends, retail, outdoors and profile writing. Digital-first, multimedia reporting and collaboration with the platform teams is expected, as well as an excitement for storytelling and keen attention to the details that propel a good story forward. Style ranges from breaking to enterprise, quick-hit buzz posts to long-form, ASF, Q&A, takeaways and more.

Role Responsibilities

• Exercise solid news judgment, a sense of urgency and the highest journalistic standards.
• Produce daily as well as mid- and longer-range enterprise stories.
• Regularly curate and aggregate content from other sources and present them with relevance and context for our LancasterOnline audience, with additional commentary and explanation.
• Actively build a social media presence by posting content and engaging with our audience. Look for video and social opportunities for story coverage.
• Use Parse.ly and/or other metrics to gauge how well stories perform with our LancasterOnline audience and, with input from editors, decide how to improve poor performers or stop writing about topics that perform poorly altogether.
• Brainstorm and collaborate with other members of the team to break news, launch projects and layer coverage in proven high reader-interest areas.

Reporters are expected to develop authoritative sources in the community, collaborate with other journalists and identify stories that are compelling to our audience. Reporters are also expected to meet the demands of a growing digital audience by routinely using social media, shooting photographs and video, and understanding how to post their work using a content-management system.

Reporting

• Organizes materials, determines focus and writes stories according to prescribed editorial style and format standards, both for the newspaper and online.
• Makes use of all available tools to generate accurate, timely and compelling content and may be required to do so with a digital-first mentality; with attention to both detail and deadlines.
• Builds expertise in a particular beat through research, experience and growing a network of relevant contacts in the community.
• Regularly curates and aggregates content from other sources and presents them to our audience with additional commentary or explanation.

Digital & Social Media

• Tracks metrics and conversations on the materials they’ve created to optimize results and shape future work toward that audience.
• Strives to keep our organization at the leading edge of online, mobile and social-network use and innovation.
• Actively builds a social media presence, which includes not just posting content, but also engaging with our audience.
• Thinks visually as well as verbally: Takes photos and shoots/edits video to accompany stories as needed.
• Takes responsibility for their own content, in terms of posting it online and subsequently being an aggressive marketer of that content across all relevant platforms.

In addition to the essential functions listed above, the employee is expected to exercise honesty, integrity and respect with all clients and co-workers, preserve confidentiality of all business information and data, maintain a professional appearance and demeanor, demonstrate a positive attitude, communicate effectively with co-workers and clients, work with accuracy, efficiency, and attention to detail, respect the work environment and keep it as environmentally friendly as possible, and exercise initiative to learn new skills and tasks and to help co-workers when possible. Reliable attendance and punctuality are also required. The employee is also expected to perform other related duties, special projects and functions as required from time to time.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in journalism, English, mass communications or related field is required, with a proven knowledge and experience working with current media creation tools and contemporary newsroom systems, producing digital and print content, preferred.
• May be required to meet AP writing style, depending on the publication.
• Solid understanding of news writing, journalistic ethics and story structure.
• Must be able to work nights and weekends as necessary.
• Team player who enjoys a fast-paced work environment.
• Wishes to work in a business environment in which every employee seeks to be great every day.

Work Environment / Equipment

• Required to use a computer monitor, keyboard, and mouse for extended periods of time.
• Ability to lift up to 20 pounds on occasion.
• Proficient use of PC, laptop, smartphone, tablet, photo/video equipment
• Ability to travel to events or venues for stories.
• Ability to work nights or weekends on occasion.

Reasonable Accommodations for Disability

Any employee, who believes that a reasonable accommodation is required for purposes of federal or state disability law is required to contact Human Resources to begin the interactive exchange process.