Opinion Writer
The Miami Herald’s award-winning opinion section seeks an experienced journalist to write an opinion column and editorials. This is a staff position.
Who are we?
The Editorial Board is a diverse group of opinion, and opinionated, colleagues, steeped in state and local issues — or able to get up to speed quickly — but with an eye on how national policy has an impact on both. Board members are respectful of each other’s views and thrive on our deep-dive conversations, but we also move quickly when the news demands it.
The Editorial Board is committed to providing readers with a diversity of voices that represents communities throughout Miami and South Florida. We reach readers beyond the written word and pursue innovation. We use social-media platforms to reach new audiences and connect with our readers. For example, we produce an ongoing series of Facebook Live events called "Speaking of Miami," where we talk to elected leaders making policy and others who have to live with those decisions. We home in on single issues with editorial series.
What you'll bring:
A superb thinker and writer with a body of work that shows clarity of thought, a distinctive and engaging voice and the ability to articulate a position with fact and logic. Excellent reporting skills are imperative. We are looking for provocative, sharply written opinions that identify issues of importance to our audience in South Florida and beyond.
Candidates should have at least five years of journalism experience and embrace our digital-first approach. A background in opinion writing is a plus. The columnist will report to the editorial page editor.
Our next columnist will:
Write three opinion pieces a week, which will include editorials. These can include short, sharp, rapid-response editorials turned around quickly as news breaks.
Have strong editing skills and news judgment
Help develop innovative ways to capture new and underserved audiences, working with the Editorial Board’s growth editor on audience engagement through audio, video and community outreach.
Where will you call home?
Miami is a dizzying news town where people are seduced by the glitz of South Beach (and where residents want all those beautiful people to just go away); the word “luxury” is slapped on everything from tiny condo units to taxi-cab yellow Maseratis to mediocre hamburgers grilled, supposedly, by celebrity chefs; there’s a never-ending supply of Botox and Brazilian butt lifts by experienced, ahem, “doctors.”
But that’s just one reality.
This is also a dynamic community with diverse political opinions. Residents want to protect their neighborhoods from rampant development. Families want a fair shake and a living wage. This is where people live for parks and boating on Biscayne Bay and kayaking in the Everglades, and where residents are both welcoming and wary of the newest to arrive. Our politics are both local and far-reaching, whether that means Tallahassee, Washington, Bogota or City Hall. We love our sports teams unless they are losers. Then we abandon them and go to the beach.
Miami is where the crosscurrents of world events create fresh news — and opportunities to write — every day.
The Editorial Board believes deeply in the power of opinion journalism to hold people accountable, to speak up for the taxpayer, the business owner, the vulnerable.
We also know that opinion journalism is vital to powering the Miami Herald’s ability to sustain itself in its practice of compelling Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism.