Local Government Reporter
The local government enterprise reporter focuses on how people live and work in South Florida with its sprawling metropolis of more than 60 local governments. The local government enterprise reporter is a free agent on the local government team, breaking stories from sources, reacting to quick-hit stories from Homestead to Coral Gables and digging for enterprise stories that connect people and how they live to their government. Using data to tease out trends and to hold local governments accountable is an important aspect of the job.
Being adept at finding and building a digital audience by tapping into the themes and issues that affect large groups of people and large swaths of the South Florida geography is equally important.
This beat is all about urgency on breaking news while producing enterprise pieces that capture trends. This reporter pursues exclusive enterprise stories that are essential to readers, hold leaders and institutions accountable and help readers understand the context of events and decisions that impact their lives.
The position demands a diversity of skill: It offers the opportunity to expand the Herald's reach to under covered neighborhoods with features and storytelling and produce investigative accountability journalism. This reporter will also be involved in meaningful political coverage as a local teammate for the state government and politics teams in the upcoming 2022 midterm elections, helping cover races for state House and Senate, governor and cabinet positions, and seats in the U.S. House and Senate.
This reporter will need to be quick-thinking and independent but must also be able to work closely with other members of the government team and Herald newsroom by pitching in during big breaking stories and teaming up for in-depth reporting.
The person in this role will create daily stories, videos, and enterprise for miamiherald.com and engage with our audience through all of our social media channels.
The ideal candidate will proactively produce and pursue an endless flow of story ideas and handle assignments as needed. This reporter should be an idea generator with strong social media skills and a knowledge of South Florida who can identify and include impacted people in stories.
They should be able to work traditional sources as well as be comfortable with social media and analytics to identify the stories people are talking about or will be talking about.
The job requires smart writing and developing sources. (Familiarity with Florida's public records laws and Excel/Google spreadsheets is a plus.)
In addition to traditional reporting and writing, you need to:
- Select stories with an eye for audience engagement and traffic
- Monitor trending topics from social media to inform editorial decisions
- Manage photos, headlines, links, SEO, and story packaging for publishing on MiamiHerald.com
- Aggregate content from third-party sources using related links, photo galleries, and videos
- Bring fresh ideas to daily content creation and social media promotion
- Engage with readers on social media platforms
- Monitor competitive websites and social media in your coverage area and personal areas of interest
- This job requires working on occasional nights, weekends, and holidays. Personal transportation is required. There may be occasional assignments that require out-of-town and overnight travel.