High School Sports Reporter

Date Posted	April 19, 2024
Industry	Newspapers
Specialty	Sports/Outdoors
Required Education	Bachelor's Degree
Job Status	Full-time

Description:

Summary:
The Bay Area News Group (Mercury News/East Bay Times) is seeking an ambitious and versatile sports reporter who will join our talented high school sports reporting team and help back-up professional beats. We are looking for a sports journalist who can provide quick game analysis in an hour or less as well as deep-dive enterprise suitable for our digital and print platforms.

Football is our primary focus from late summer through the early winter. It drives pageviews and subscriptions like nothing else on the high school beat. During football season, we give our readers something new every day in time for our 8 a.m. newsletter. In the winter, we mostly cover basketball. In the spring, we cover sports such as baseball, softball and track and field. This beat also provides opportunities for enterprise stories and in-depth features that reach broad audiences. We are not looking for run-of-the-mill profiles.

What you will do:

• Work in real time, publishing words, sounds and images around the clock for millions of online readers and hundreds of thousands of people who read our daily newspapers

• Familiarize yourself with the top prep teams and coaches in our coverage area and providing regularly-scheduled content such as rankings, athlete of the week candidates, roundups, and previews – proven winners for us on the metrics scale

• Provide concise, accurate game coverage

• Write analysis that tell readers more than who scored and won

• Produce compelling enterprise stories

• Generate regular weekly content that readers will come to rely on like weekly rankings, roundups, athlete-of-the-week, etc. 

• Regularly work nights and weekends 

• Build relationships with the schools to bring in exclusive content and/or breaking news 

• Communicate with your supervisor and colleagues regularly

• Monitor your metrics and adjust your audience engagement strategy as needed

What you will bring:

• Knowledge of a variety of sports - football, soccer, basketball, baseball, softball, track and field, etc. 

• Prior sports journalism experience (college media experience is okay) 

• Strong writing skills under deadline pressure

• Ability to juggle multiple stories of varying complexity

• Strong grammatical skills and a working knowledge of the Associated Press stylebook

• Proficiency at using social media to report stories and to share them

• Ability to find and develop sources within the organizations

• Solid sports news judgment

• Excellent communication skills regardless of the platform (i.e. in-person, Slack, Zoom, email, texts, etc.)

• Attention to detail and organization

• Ability to work harmoniously with other departments (i.e. audience, photo and print production teams) 

• Have a car available to drive to assignments all around the Bay Area

• 4-year college degree (journalism or related fields)

Must be located in the South or East Bay area. Must also have a valid drivers license.

Along with your resume, please submit a cover letter and 3-4 sports writing clips.

The hourly wage is $28.00 - $30.77 ($54,600 - $60,001). Pay is based on several factors including but not limited to education, work experience, time in role, certifications, etc. In addition to your salary, MediaNews Group offers a comprehensive benefits package, and 401K plan (all benefits are based on eligibility).

Who we are:

Bay Area News Group is a media company whose portfolio is comprised of regional news and advertising products, as well as other well-positioned and growing digital businesses. Bay Area News Group is the single leading source of news and information for the majority of communities throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Our weekly audience exceeds 5 million through a portfolio of print and digital products. Bay Area News Group is a part of Media News Group, the second largest newspaper company in the United States. Our mission is to inform Bay Area communities by telling accurate and compelling stories that make an impact. Bay Area News Group is the largest newspaper publisher in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. Our original flagship newspaper, The Mercury News, began as a broadsheet pulled from a hand press in 1851. From there it grew into a Pulitzer Prize-winning daily, in time combining resources with other leading papers to become the largest news publisher in the Bay Area. Today we have the most extensive newsroom staff covering this vibrant market, bolstered by top national and international news services. In April of 2016 Bay Area News Group consolidated its major dailies into two regional powerhouses: The Mercury News serving Silicon Valley and the Peninsula; and the East Bay Times serving Oakland, Walnut Creek, Pleasanton and the rest of the East Bay. Readers on each side of the bay get the news, information and entertainment that shapes and impacts their own lives. Further neighborhood coverage is provided by additional Bay Area News Group publications, including the Marin Independent Journal and dozens of community weeklies.

We are an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status.

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