Health Beat Reporter

WHRO•Norfolk, VA

9d•$60,000 - $75,000•Onsite

About The Position

The Health Beat Reporter will cover health for Hampton Roads, digging into the topic as a major local industry, a science, tackling consumer protection themes all while keeping human stories at the center of their work. WHRO's health reporter will think of health as a business, science, government policy and human interest topic, sometimes all at once. The ideal candidate will look for stories in Hampton Roads' numerous hospital systems, emerging public health education programs and in the communities who are living with longstanding health disparities. The health reporter's primary responsibility is to look for daily stories to document major changes in the local health and health care landscape while pursuing long-term feature stories of interest to the regional community. The ideal reporter will look for story ideas before major health policy changes and in some cases, uncover and document challenges that may inspire change in the health world. To that end, the reporter may collaborate with the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO to bring Hampton Roads story to a larger statewide audience with more reporting and sources. All beat reporters will be expected to produce several daily stories a week and regular enterprise stories.

Requirements

Demonstrated written and/or verbal communication skills
Bachelor’s degree or 4 years equivalent experience
Minimum 4 years of demonstrated experience in professional journalism
Experience in newsroom, preferably local or regional
Experience in audio field reporting and production

Nice To Haves

Visual journalism including still photography and videography
Knowledge of Adobe Audition audio editing software
Fluency in more than one language
Data visualization skills
Knowledge of the Hampton Roads, VA region

Responsibilities

File regular daily and long-form news which includes digital and broadcast components
Engage with the Hampton Roads community to build sources and trust within your assigned beat to ensure a full accounting of the stories
Maintain detailed knowledge of assigned beat at a local, state and national level to find enterprise story topics and break local news within the beat
Research large quantities of information on one topic and distill it into meaningful, understandable takeaways
Work closely with an editor, hosts and other colleagues to determine editorial priorities, share ideas and provide accurate, timely engaging health news to WHRO’s audience
Contextualize and humanize reporting by seeking out a diverse range of local people to center health stories
Participate in station events as appropriate.
Ensure all reporting meets the WHRO expectations of accuracy, independence and fairness.
Have an interest in and talent for engaging with diverse communities
Lead occasional training and/or listening sessions for the newsroom
Available to work varied shifts as required by the news cycle
Pitch big projects, series and investigations
Other duties as assigned.