State Government Reporter

Mountain State Spotlight; Charleston (WV); On-site; USD 50,000 - 70,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

401(k)

Twenty-five days paid time off

Paid parental leave

Parking and technology reimbursement

Flexible work schedule

Job summary

Mountain State Spotlight is hiring a State Government Reporter in Charleston, West Virginia. You will cover power and state government, focusing on how decisions affect families and communities, and translate budgets, bills, and court decisions into clear context for readers.

You will gather sources across the state, pursue accountability through records and data, and develop enterprise and investigative stories that examine government programs and the people impacted by them.

Qualifications

• Evidence that you can find stories others miss and ask difficult questions.
• Earn people’s trust and produce journalism that holds powerful institutions accountable.
• Ability to build sources beyond the usual political insiders.

Responsibilities

• Cover power, not just politics, and report on how decisions are made and who influences them.
• Hold state government accountable for results by following laws, programs, spending and promises.
• Explain legislation, budgets, regulations and court decisions in plain language without losing their importance.
• Follow the money using budgets, contracts, campaign-finance reports and lobbying disclosures.
• Report from communities outside the Capitol to reflect diverse experiences in West Virginia.
• Develop enterprise and investigative stories from sessions, audits, lawsuits, and agency actions.
• Help reinvent election coverage by informing readers about candidates and the stakes of elections.
• Build a beat with deep knowledge and strong sources, reporting from across the state.

Skills

Relentlessly curious

Strong news judgment

Build sources beyond insiders

Explain complex subjects clearly

Public records experience

Data, budgets and financial records

Collaborate across newsroom

Job description

Now hiring: State Government Reporter

Few things affect West Virginians’ lives more than decisions made by state government. But West Virginians need political reporting that focuses less on the people making those decisions and more on the people who have to live with them.

Mountain State Spotlight is looking for a curious, tenacious reporter to cover power and state government in West Virginia.

This is not a traditional statehouse job.

Our mission is not to chronicle what happened at the Capitol today. We want a reporter who asks bigger questions: What problems are West Virginians asking their government to solve? What is government doing about them? Who has the power to make things better? Who benefits from the choices government makes, and who pays the price?

You’ll report on the Legislature, governor’s office, executive agencies, courts, elections and the people and organizations trying to influence them. But the institutions aren’t the point. West Virginians are.

That means getting out of the Capitol and talking to people affected by the decisions made there. It means translating budgets, bills, regulations and court decisions into what they mean for a family, a worker or a community. It means following the money, examining campaign spending and lobbying, testing politicians’ statements against evidence and returning months or years later to see whether government programs actually delivered what officials promised.

And it means resisting the urge to treat every press conference, committee meeting, campaign attack or legislative maneuver as a story simply because it happened.

We want you to use those events to find stories: to notice something that doesn’t make sense, develop sources, identify patterns, dig into public records and data and discover things West Virginians otherwise would not know.

Some of those stories will take a day. Some will take a few weeks. Some will become major investigations.

We want a reporter who can do all three.

West Virginia is a small state facing serious challenges and expanding news deserts, but that creates enormous opportunities for journalists who want their reporting to matter. Mountain State Spotlight is building a newsroom around accountability journalism that helps West Virginians understand the forces shaping their lives.

The job

• Cover power, not just politics. Report on how decisions get made in West Virginia state government, who influences those decisions and what happens to people as a result.
• Hold state government accountable for results. Follow laws, programs, spending and promises beyond the announcement or bill signing. Find out whether they worked, who benefited, who didn’t and why.
• Make government understandable. Explain complicated legislation, budgets, regulations, court decisions and political processes in plain language without stripping away their importance or complexity.
• Follow the money. Use budgets, contracts, campaign-finance reports, lobbying disclosures and other records to understand who has influence over government and where public money goes.
• Get outside the Statehouse. Build sources throughout West Virginia and report directly from communities affected by government decisions. Our state-government journalism should reflect the experiences and information needs of people across the state, not simply the conversations happening in Charleston.
• Develop enterprise and investigative stories. Treat legislative sessions, interim meetings, audits, lawsuits, elections, agency actions and tips as starting points for questions that can lead to distinctive accountability journalism.
• Help reinvent election coverage. Give West Virginians useful information about candidates, campaign money, political power and the stakes of elections rather than simply chronicling campaign events and political messaging.
• Build a beat. Develop deep knowledge, strong sources and a rolling collection of questions, tips and curiosities. We want a reporter who is always noticing things and asking, “Why is that happening?” and “How could we find out?”
• Collaborate across the newsroom. State government touches everything we cover. You’ll work closely with reporters covering public health, economic security, economic development, energy and the environment, and communities to investigate problems that cross traditional beats.
• Produce journalism at different speeds. You should be comfortable pursuing a strong story that can be reported quickly while continuing to develop deeper enterprise and investigative work.
  

You’re a good fit if you:

• Are relentlessly curious and enjoy figuring out how things actually work — especially when someone in power would prefer that you didn’t.
• Have strong news judgment and can distinguish between something that happened and something that actually matters.
• Believe accountability journalism starts with evidence and questions, not a predetermined conclusion.
• Can talk comfortably and respectfully with people in very different circumstances — from a family struggling with a government program to a legislator, lobbyist, agency secretary or governor.
• Know how to build sources beyond the usual cast of political insiders.
• Can take complicated subjects and explain them clearly to people who don’t spend their days reading legislation or following Statehouse politics.
• Are comfortable with public records and willing to fight for information when government doesn’t want to provide it.
• Can work with data, budgets and financial records — or are eager to develop those skills.
• Can prioritize and work on short-, medium- and long-term stories at the same time.
• Want to work closely with editors and other reporters from the earliest stages of an idea through reporting, writing and publication. We believe reporting and writing are team sports.
• Feel urgency about the decline of local news and are excited about building something different to serve West Virginians.

We’re interested in journalists at different stages of their careers. Experience covering government, politics or public policy is helpful, as is experience reporting in West Virginia or another rural Appalachian state, but neither is mandatory.

More important is evidence that you can find stories other reporters miss, ask difficult questions, earn people’s trust and produce journalism that holds powerful institutions accountable.

We know great candidates won’t check every box. You may also bring skills or experiences we haven’t thought to ask for. If this job sounds like work you want to do, we want to hear from you.

The successful candidate will be expected to live in or near Charleston, West Virginia. Our newsroom is based downtown, about 2.5 miles from the state Capitol. This job will require plenty of time at the Capitol, plenty of time reporting everywhere else.

The Organization

Mountain State Spotlight is an independent, nonprofit newsroom founded in 2020.

Our mission is to help West Virginians improve their state through journalism that exposes abuses of power, explains why problems persist and examines who has the power and responsibility to fix them.

As commercial newsrooms across West Virginia have shrunk, communities have lost reporters and important public institutions receive less scrutiny. We are building a different model: a growing statewide newsroom focused on the issues that matter most to West Virginians and on producing journalism people can use.

We are committed to representing all West Virginians in our work, and we believe a newsroom with a broad range of backgrounds and life experiences produces stronger journalism. We encourage members of traditionally underrepresented communities to apply, including women, people of color, LGBTQ people, veterans and people with disabilities.

We strongly encourage West Virginians to apply, but we also welcome journalists from elsewhere who want to discover a beautiful state filled with important stories and opportunities to do journalism that matters.

Compensation and benefits

• Salary range for this job is $50,000 to $70,000, depending on experience.
• Benefits, including health insurance and 401(k).
• Twenty-five days of paid time off in addition to holidays and our annual paid “dark week” between Christmas and New Year’s.
• Paid parental leave.
• Parking and technology reimbursement.
• Flexible work schedule. Some weekend and evening hours will be required.