Development and Transportation Reporter
The Growth/Land Use/Development Reporter, reporting under the direction of the Quality of Life Team Leader, is a proven, experienced journalist who covers issues surrounding development and transportation and the connection between the two in Lancaster County. This beat covers everything from farm preservation and urban sprawl to zoning and transportation planning issues, affordable housing and the countys changing landscape. How has COVID changed projects or planning? When will the last piece of land ripe for development be used up? Whats the hottest use of land right now in the county, and where is the biggest potential? Whats the burden on our roads? What's the slowest traffic light in Lancaster County? The Growth/Land Use/Development 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. This reporter anticipates reader questions and develops stories -- from quick digital posts to in-depth projects -- to answer them. In any given week, the Development Reporter could be writing on topics such as why a city panels decision on a historic property matters; rents in new retirement communities; a new developments impact on traffic; controversial changes to historic landmarks; and implementation of the countys Places2040 plan.
Essential Job Functions:
- Growth/Land Use/Development 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 Parsely 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 Quality of Life 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 organizations 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 theyve 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, 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 neat and clean as possible, and exercise initiative to learn new skills and tasks and to help co-workers when possible.