The Wichita Eagle is looking for a self-starting, audience-focused reporter to cover half of Wichita’s main suburbs.
This reporter will take a unique service journalism approach that focuses on listening to and serving local readers with quick, need-to-know information in an accessible format. We’re looking for a reporter who can balance daily news along with quick-turn enterprise stories, focusing on topics that people who live in these growing areas care about. Those topics could range from development and education to safety and politics, as well as new places to eat and do business.
This is a job for a resourceful digger who understands that building a loyal audience around a topic requires publishing consistently and often. You are right for this role if you understand that frequent, consistent publishing builds habits in readers, who come to trust that they can depend on you to deliver each day, giving them a reason to come back and engage. Story ideas will come from getting out in these communities, not just from meeting agendas.The reporter will be open to using callouts and other engagement tools to hear directly from residents about what they’d like to see covered and will use multiple story formats, including service journalism-style explainers and fact checks.
You will be the face of our coverage in these suburbs, so front-facing video experience is a major plus.
We are part of McClatchy, a digitally driven company focused on innovation, with newsrooms in 30 communities in the United States.
In This Role, You Will Need To
- Focus on stories that build readership
- Master engaging multimedia storytelling
- Use social media platforms to help distribute and highlight work
- Demonstrate speed, competitiveness and SEO savvy through aggregating and storytelling tools
- Understand and use audience metrics to help increase readership
- Shoot photos and video when needed
- Skillfully use content-management systems
- Live in Wichita or its suburbs
McClatchy Media’s journalists are expected to take advantage of opportunities to ethically harness and leverage artificial intelligence and other automation to enhance and elevate their work and to find efficiencies that free them to focus on source-building and high-quality, deeply reported journalism.
What You’ll Bring
The successful candidate should meet many, though not necessarily all, of the following requirements:
- College degree or similar experience.
- 1-3 years of reporting experience.
- Solid news judgment and excellent journalism ethics.
- Strong writing and reporting skills, excellent news judgment and a demonstrated ability to see the story that is going to matter to readers.
- Ability to work quickly and meet deadlines.
- An intuitive sense of what’s important and interesting to audiences on all platforms.
- A deep curiosity and high energy.
- Familiarity/experience with accountability journalism preferred.
- A commitment to diverse coverage through community engagement and source building.
- A collaborative work ethic and the ability to communicate easily with people on our team and across the company.
- Proficient knowledge of technology, including content management systems and storytelling tools.
- Ability to quickly and accurately research and verify the authenticity of information, sources, photos and video.
- Valid drivers' license and vehicle insurance meeting or exceeding the legally mandated minimum requirements.
What We’ll Bring
The Wichita Eagle, in print and online as Kansas.com, is the leading and essential source for news, information and commentary in south-central Kansas. In the past several years the work of Eagle journalists has won numerous national and regional awards, including the George Polk Award for Political Reporting, the Carmage Walls Commentary Prize, the Frank A. Blethen Award for Local Accountability Reporting, the Edward R. Murrow Award and an Emmy for Documentary Program: Topical.
Our journalism focuses on our community, and in that role we have the ability to spotlight problems, highlight solutions and truly make a difference -- all the reasons you got into journalism.
We are part of McClatchy, a digitally driven company focused on innovation. Here, you will join a team that is fun, collaborative and always looking for new ways to reach readers and tell unique stories.
As a journalist at McClatchy, you will join a supportive, flexible, collaborative team. McClatchy strives to be an employer of choice, and our benefits package is made with this goal in mind. With a focus on health, well-being, wealth and daily life, our package options include healthcare coverage for employees and their families, financial protection from expected and unexpected expenses, multiple no-cost wellness resources and even coverage for four-legged friends.
Our overall benefits package also includes a 401(k) with employer match, competitive paid time off and corporate holidays, and a variety of mental health benefits. With an excellent support team and with focus on your well-being as a top corporate strategy, McClatchy provides benefits to support you and your family in achieving your health and wellness goals. For more information on McClatchy's benefit plan, please visit McClatchyLivewell.com.
To apply, include a persuasive cover letter, your resume and four to six examples of your best work.
About McClatchy Media
The McClatchy Media Company features a portfolio of vibrant and trusted news, lifestyle, entertainment brands and a robust retail distribution network. Our iconic local news brands such as the Miami Herald, The Kansas City Star and The Sacramento Bee, have collectively earned a total of 57 Pulitzer prizes and are complemented by popular lifestyle and entertainment brands such as Us Weekly and Woman’s World. Together, our brands reach more than 100 million unique visitors a month. The McClatchy Retail Network, our distribution and logistics arm, offers delivery to more than 56,000 retail locations weekly.
