Health care reporter

Description:

The Chattanooga Times Free Press has an immediate opening for a reporter to cover health care for nine months under the guidance of reporter Elizabeth Fite, who has been selected to work on a Local Journalism Initiative project with the PBS documentary series “Frontline.”

Elizabeth will be working full time on the project but will be available to mentor and guide a reporter who joins the staff as her temporary replacement. This is an outstanding opportunity for a journalist to learn how to work a beat from one of the best.

The health care beat in Chattanooga includes several large hospital systems, the headquarters for the state's largest health insurance company and an academic medical center affiliated with the University of Tennessee College of Medicine.

Health care is Chattanooga’s largest industry, and coverage concerning the region’s hospitals — whose employees make up a large proportion of our subscriber base — are among our newspaper’s most impactful and well-read stories. Our health care reporter has an opportunity to take complex hospital, legal and political policy issues and distill them in a way that’s understandable and relatable to laypeople. 

Tennessee is ranked third worst in the nation in terms of a healthy populace, a sad situation that offers this reporter a real opportunity to find stories that make a difference in people’s lives. According to Forbes, Tennessee has the highest rate of opioid misuse (3,743.97 per 100,000 adults) and prescription pain reliever misuse (3,190.88 per 100,000 adults) in the country, has the third highest percentage of adults who smoke (18.5%), has the fifth highest drug overdose death rate (44.47 deaths per 100,000 state residents) and the fifth highest percentage of obese adults (38.9%). All these areas and more offer fertile ground for impactful coverage.

Although this is a temporary position, the Times Free Press has frequent opportunities for talented reporters looking to advance their careers here, and we see this position as an opportunity to bring you into our network. 

Interested? Send an email outlining how you would approach this important beat to ryoung@timesfreepress.com. Include work samples, and attach a resume including references. Please include "health care reporter" in the email subject line to make sure your application is routed properly.