The Lawrence Times is hiring for a full-time reporter and news team leader.
We are a small, independent, online-only publication covering community news in Lawrence and Douglas County, Kansas. This position represents exciting growth for us, and it’s largely enabled by a grant we received in recognition of our work filling local news gaps. (You can read more about that at this link; see more links to info about us below.)
Our team works remotely but very collaboratively. We launched about four years ago, and this position will mark the first time we’ve had more than two full-time employees. (We’re excited!) However, our team is robust with part-time team members and contributors.
Ideally, we would like to hire someone who is comfortable with roughly 60-75% of their work focusing on reporting and about 25-40% on helping to manage the publication, editing, assisting with web content and other duties to be discussed. How the division of time looks will depend on the candidate’s preferences and will fluctuate from day to day with the news cycle and with our personal workloads.
Basic duties will likely include:
• Reporting news articles on Lawrence and Douglas County subjects, ranging from concise, quick-turnaround daily articles to features, longer-term projects and investigative work.
• Preparing content for publication on the website and helping to edit some articles.
• Helping to assign articles to other reporters to ensure important news stories get coverage, and coordinating with our photo editor to ensure the stories have art.
• Coaching, mentoring and encouraging other reporters, student journalists and interns to help them better their work and see what might be missing from their stories.
• Finding stories that aren’t otherwise being covered and shedding light on issues that have slipped under the radar.
Other duties will depend heavily on the interests of the applicant, but could range anywhere from measuring audience engagement to planning in-person events; producing a podcast to taking over our TikTok; creating illustrations or infographics to managing other reporters. These are just hypothetical examples; let’s talk.
Ideal applicants will:
• Move quickly to pursue stories zealously.
• Communicate well, and often, with members of the news team and people in the community.
• Make a concerted effort to seek out and amplify the voices of people directly affected by the issues we’re covering.
• Place great value on, and pay great attention to, accuracy in all aspects of this work.
• Have previous experience in a full-time journalism job.
• Always be on the lookout for news and ready to run a story down.
• Have an aptitude for technology and learn to use new programs (web platforms, apps, etc.) quickly.
• Have an understanding of how to interpret and chart numbers and data. (This position will not require coding, but if you know how to do it, great!)
• Be self-motivated and get work done without constant supervision.
• Loathe “the way things have always been done,” strive for better and think outside the box.
• Treat people well and be generally delightful.
• Laugh at our jokes. (Just kidding. But see? We’re funny.)
This position is largely remote, though reporters should expect to cover some events and meetings in person as well as attend occasional in-person staff meetings in Lawrence.
This is a full-time, salaried position, and candidates should generally expect to work 40 hours a week. We would be open to considering employing the right candidate at fewer than 40 hours per week (but ideally 30 or more) if that is preferable for them.
This position will remain open until filled, though the sooner we receive your application, the better. We’re looking to grow carefully and hoping to find a candidate who fits just right. If you’re not selected for this position, we might still have part-time or freelance work for you.
Those who are interested can learn more and apply at this link.
Want to know more before you apply? You can find some helpful information about working with us on this page. Find our bios at this link and read even more about who we are, what we do and where we came from on this page.
If you have questions, please contact Mackenzie Clark, reporter/founder, at mclark@lawrencekstimes.com.
If our local journalism matters to you, please help us keep doing this work.
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