Health/Wellness Reporter
The Health/Wellness Reporter, reporting under the direction of the Work & Wellness Team Leader, is a proven, experienced journalist who covers everything from school, elderly, poverty and Plain Sect health care issues to Lancaster County’s hospitals, health systems, telemedicine initiatives and more. The Health/Wellness Reporter breaks down complex issues and develops enterprise stories for digital and print audiences that are presented in ways that are easily understood by lay readers. The Health/Wellness Reporter’s critical mission is to explain to Lancaster County residents the “how and why”: How and why health care mergers impact them; how and why federal/national and state legislation or trends impact their lives; etc. This reporter, in any given week, could be writing on topics such as a cost comparison of prescription drugs at county pharmacies, data comparison on the county’s largest medical providers, development plans for a new urgent care facility or a roundup of food recalls.
The Health/Wellness Reporter is expected to:
- Exercise solid news judgment, a sense of urgency and the highest journalistic standards.
- Produce daily as well as mid- and longer-range enterprise stories.
- Regularly curate and aggregate content from other sources and present them with relevance and context for our LancasterOnline audience, with additional commentary and explanation.
- Actively build a social media presence by posting content and engaging with our audience. Look for video and social opportunities for story coverage.
- Use Parse.ly and/or other metrics to gauge how well stories perform with our LancasterOnline audience and, with input from editors, decide how to improve poor performers or stop writing about topics that perform poorly altogether.
- Brainstorm and collaborate with other members of the Work & Wellness Team to break news, launch projects and layer coverage in proven high reader-interest areas.
Reporters are expected to develop authoritative sources in the community, collaborate with other LNP | LancasterOnline journalists and identify stories that are compelling to this community news organization’s audience. Reporters are also expected to meet the demands of a growing digital audience by routinely using social media, shooting photographs and video, and understanding how to post their work using a content-management system.
Reporting
- Organizes materials, determines focus and writes stories according to prescribed editorial style and format standards, both for the newspaper and online.
- Makes use of all available tools to generate accurate, timely and compelling content and may be required to do so with a digital-first mentality; with attention to both detail and deadlines.
- Builds expertise in a particular beat through research, experience and growing a network of relevant contacts in the community.
- Regularly curates and aggregates content from other sources and presents them to our audience with additional commentary or explanation.
Digital & social media
- Tracks metrics and conversations on the materials they’ve created to optimize results and shape future work toward that audience.
- Strives to keep our organization at the leading edge of online, mobile and social-network use and innovation.
- Actively builds a social media presence, which includes not just posting content, but also engaging with our audience.
- Thinks visually as well as verbally: Takes photos and shoots/edits video to accompany stories as needed.
- Takes responsibility for his or her own content, in terms of posting it online and subsequently being an aggressive marketer of that content across all relevant platforms.
In addition to the essential functions listed above, the employee is expected to exercise honesty, integrity and respect with all clients and co-workers, preserve confidentially of all business information and data, maintain a professional appearance and demeanor, demonstrate a positive attitude, communicate effectively with co-workers and clients, work with accuracy, efficiency, and attention to detail, respect the work environment and keep it as environmentally friendly as possible, and exercise initiative to learn new skills and tasks and to help co-workers when possible. Reliable attendance and punctuality are also required. The employee is also expected to perform other related duties, special projects and functions as required from time to time.
Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree in journalism, English, mass communications or related field is required, with a proven knowledge and experience working with current media creation tools and contemporary newsroom systems, producing digital and print content, preferred.
- May be required to meet AP writing style, depending on the publication.
- Solid understanding of news writing, journalistic ethics and story structure.
- Must be able to work nights and weekends as necessary.
- Team player who enjoys a fast-paced work environment.
- Wishes to work in a business environment in which every employee seeks to be great every day.