Senior Journalist - Sports

Create premium content for courant.com and other digital platforms that engages audiences and supports the newsroom’s mission. Senior journalists will be among the most sophisticated and experienced journalists in the newsroom, bringing particular expertise and knowledge to their coverage areas and able to create the most compelling content the newsroom has to offer. Senior journalists develop, report, analyze and create original news and feature stories in text and other forms, including, when appropriate, video, audio, podcasts, Facebook Live events, simple graphics, etc. They have exceptional writing and reporting skills. They are fluent in assessing audience through basic metrics and publishing on other platforms such as social media. They are prepared to promote themselves, their work, tronc and The Hartford Courant through social channels, in broadcast media and at live events.

Senior journalists must be self-directed and consistently deliver superior work with little direct supervision. They often work long and irregular days and hours, sometimes on projects with demanding deadlines, and travel when necessary. Senior journalists must possess initiative; creativity; good news judgment; attention to detail; self-direction; the ability to multitask and meet deadlines; the ability and desire to work with a team; a strong command of the English language and a commitment to accuracy. They should have a sophisticated understanding of digital trends, social media and audience metrics.

• Being fast and accurate: Always striving to provide readers with what we know, when we know it. Be transparent about sources of information.
• Employing creativity every day to conceive of stories, produce or secure visuals, get sources to cooperate, corroborate facts and present information to readers in the most relevant, interesting way.
• Bringing particular expertise and knowledge to coverage areas.
• Maximizing audience engagement with the site through use of various storytelling formats, including photo galleries, video, aggregation and a variety of layouts.
• Creating premium news and features content, that is among the newsroom’s most compelling work--strong on grammar, punctuation, clarity and accuracy.
• Taking the initiative to fact-check, run background checks and confirm information before publication.
• Delivering on time with minimal to moderate supervision and editing.
• Cultivating beats, where appropriate, and sources.
• Promoting themselves, their work and the Tribune through social media, in broadcast media and at live events.
• Uncovering and proposing exclusive stories on newsworthy events and trends.
• Conceiving, creating, editing, aggregating or producing various types of content. Depending on department, this may include videos, maps, timelines, multimedia, documents, graphics, photo galleries, gifs and social aggregations.
• Taking or securing photos, and creating videos, making them available in the content management system.
• Measuring performance of one’s own digital content through audience engagement metrics and working with audience team develop tactics and strategies to build audience.
• Working with data and visuals teams, as appropriate, to deepen reporting and produce data-visualization content items
• Participating in production videos and live streaming with visuals department, as appropriate
• Striving to meet specific individual goals as assigned on a regular basis by supervisor.

• Professional-level utilization of proper grammar, spelling, punctuation.
• Ability to write accurately, with clarity, without bias.
• Knowledge of libel laws and adherence to tronc’s and The Hartford Courant’s codes of ethics.
• Strong work ethic and entrepreneurial spirit.
• Competitive instincts.
• Ability to multitask and perform in a fast-paced deadline driven environment.
• Ability to work independently when required while at the same time operate efficiently in a team dynamic.
• Maintain and acquire new skills on multiple digital platforms and evolving technologies.
• Familiarity with current events and newsmakers.
• Quick-turnaround skills.
• Familiarity with analytics and ability to translate data into tactics and strategies, including ability to use metrics from Chartbeat, Adobe Analytics, social and other tools.
• Working knowledge of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social platforms and ability to develop/follow best practices for social.
• Knowledge of SEO best practices and ability to research SEO and appropriately populate fields and headlines.
• Willingness to work evenings/weekends and irregular hours.