Senior Correspondent

Lookout Local; Santa Cruz (CA); On-site; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive compensation

Full benefits

PTO

Stock options

Impact on local journalism

Collaborative culture

Job summary

Lookout Local in California is seeking a Senior Correspondent to lead accountability reporting and collaborate with our team of journalists. The role emphasizes in-depth coverage of legal systems, housing, affordability, and local economic changes, with a strong data journalism emphasis and public records requests.

You will mentor peers, drive investigative projects, and contribute to our mission of reviving local journalism in a fast-paced, reader-focused newsroom.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience reporting on accountability and watchdog topics.
• Proficient with public records requests and data journalism.
• Ability to lead enterprise investigations and long-form reporting.
• Strong newsroom leadership and collaboration.

Responsibilities

• Lead accountability agenda with editors to identify opportunities.
• Produce quick-turn and long-term accountability stories.
• Mentor reporters on in-depth stories and FOIA requests.
• Lead investigative tools such as Nexis and public records datasets.
• Track an ongoing newsroom-wide FOIA/public records database.

Skills

News reporting

Open records laws

Fast-paced

Strong writing

Data journalism

Collaboration

Startup agility

Bilingual EN/ES

Job description

About Lookout Local

Lookout Eugene-Springfield's mission is to provide fair, accurate, and non-partisan news, focusing on the role of business in shaping a community through taxes and jobs. We are committed to reviving local journalism and engaging with the community to reflect their needs and interests. Lookout Eugene-Springfield now approaches its first anniversary, having already achieved great traction - audience, membership, advertising, and community trust - It is part of Lookout Local, a now fast-growing, next-generation West Coast-based local news network. Lookout Santa Cruz won the 2024 Pulitzer for Breaking News, and Lookout's fiercely mission-driven, business-driven model is winning wide national notice. Check out our network page: https://lookout.co/network.

Our workplaces are in-person, in-community, collaborative and collegial. We are building a diverse, highly skilled and mission-driven group of journalists, community builders and business people intent on maintaining our culture of learning, growth and community service.

About the role

This Senior Correspondent position will focus both on their own work and on working with the full team of correspondents, enhancing meaningful, in-depth reporting across our full range of coverage.

Major issues we've covered demand deeper and wider coverage, including deeper dives into the criminal system, law enforcement agencies and the courts. There are real issues of jail treatment, opioid overdose response and the familiar mental health challenges that communities face.

Affordability, the kind and nature of housing and economic development and homelessness head the list of issues the senior correspondent will help report and lead on. Further, the issues of our day - the local impacts of dramatic change in federal funding - pervades and will continue to dominate much coverage going forward.

The senior correspondent brings a fair, experienced, inventive and nuanced approach to these issues, surfacing fresh reporting. We expect a successful candidate to bring a rich background of accountability and watchdog work, including a knowledge of public records and data journalism, showing the ability to take on broader issues as well as breaking impactful news. The ideal candidate must have demonstrated a command of the reader-focused, people-driven, data-centric reporting that provides readers and communities what they want.

The correspondent will work both independently and collaboratively with editors and fellow correspondents to deepen and broaden our coverage. The demonstrated ability to collaborate is a must.

Responsibilities

• Lead our accountability agenda, working with editors to identify and prioritize opportunities for investigative, enterprise and in-depth reporting across the newsroom.
• Produce quick-turn and long-term accountability stories that meet the needs of a fast-paced newsroom.
• Work with and mentor other reporters to develop in-depth stories on their beats and spanning multiple beats, including assisting with records requests and source development.
• Be a newsroom leader on investigative tools, such as Nexis, public records and datasets (publicly available or compiled) that can be mined for stories.
• Track an ongoing newsroom-wide database of FOIA and public records requests.

Essential Skills

• Eight to 10 years of experience as a daily news reporter, demonstrating significant accountability work.
• Demonstrated proficiency with open records laws and libel laws.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment and handle multiple and changing priorities simultaneously.
• Excellent news judgment and outstanding writing and editing skills, including an ability to turn investigative reporting into compelling narratives.
• Data journalism skills, particularly data collection and data analysis.
• Comfort with the format of Lookout's correspondent-focused model, and the personality it brings to the work.
• Desire to work in an entrepreneurial, fast-growth startup environment, embracing the agility and flexibility required to thrive within a new business.

Nice to have

• Bilingual abilities in Spanish and English.
• Editing abilities are a plus.
• Ability to create visualizations that aid storytelling.
• Evolving applied knowledge of AI use.

What We Offer:

• Competitive salary and performance-based incentives.
• Full-time benefits include highly competitive medical, dental, and optical benefits, and 401(k) with matching.
• Good PTO allowances
• Stock options in our growing company
• An opportunity to make a significant impact on and contribute to the revival of local journalism.
• A collaborative and mission-driven work environment.