Breaking News Reporter

The Modesto Bee seeks a breaking news reporter who enjoys waking up in the morning ready to pounce on news. Modesto is a vibrant news town, and this reporter has a huge role in determining how we cover stories in the heart of California’s Central Valley. The position calls for moving with urgency, and it offers great opportunities to go deep and develop enterprise work off the news. In this role, you get to start and finish.

The reporting is fast-paced, competitive and rewarding. The opportunities are vast, from critical breaking crime news to meaningful stories that touch every aspect of life in California. When big news happens, this reporter not only kicks it off, but also plays a key role in working with a team of editors and reporters in our collaborative, award-winning newsroom. Crime, wildfires, floods — breaking news provides the fulcrum on a variety of fronts, be they criminal justice, health, business, government, schools, sports or, yes, fun.

The Bee’s audience includes a growing community of 215,000 in Modesto, a vibrant city navigating the twin challenges of problems and promise, as well as a growing metro area of about 550,000. Our audience craves useful, solutions-oriented information, and this breaking news reporter stays on the edge of what’s happening now and next. You are part of a team helping to guide a community through change.

Our Modesto community is ethnically diverse, lively and growing. The downtown area is known for its restaurants and entertainment scene. Modesto is home to Gallo, the largest winemaker in the world, and is an agriculture-based economy that enjoys the amenities of larger cities. The city boasts tree-lined streets and parklands with walking and bike trails. We’re 75 miles east of the Bay Area and a 2.5-hour drive from Yosemite, Monterey and skiing.

This is a great position, not only to report on breaking news for those who live here, but also to learn all the facets of life in Modesto and to develop a base for moving into other arenas of reporting. This reporter helps ensure we excel in our primary news mission while developing skills and areas of expertise.

The anticipated base pay range for this position is between $24 and $29 per hour. Individual base pay may vary within that range depending on job-related knowledge, skills, experience, relevant education, department equity, training, geography and local wage and hours laws.

In this role, you will need to:

Be competitive, urgent and productive. Report and write quickly and thoroughly.
Understand our breaking news protocols.
Be first, be accurate, be smart.
Develop connections with key sources we rely on for information, and expand that network to produce complete stories.
Focus on our audiences’ interests and needs first and always, with a commitment to tactics that grow readership.
Develop engaging multimedia storytelling.
Demonstrate a command of audience analytics and knowledge of the tactics that deliver results.
Demonstrate speed, competitiveness and SEO savvy.
Work closely with editors, and collaborate with visual editors and our audience growth team.
Work well in a team environment.

The successful candidate should meet the following requirements:

Two years of journalism experience.

Strong reporting and writing skills, excellent news judgment and a demonstrated ability to “see the story” that is going to matter to readers.
Unwavering commitment to accurate, ethical journalism.
Ability to work collaboratively to aggressively tackle stories.
Comfort with a job that will be demanding, fast-paced and constantly evolving.
College degree or equivalent work experience.