If you’re interested in the Surprise City Hall opening, we’re looking for a reporter with strong watchdog, enterprise and storytelling skills. Surprise has grown from 10,000 to more than 100,000 residents in little more than a decade. That rapid growth has led to issues tantalizing to journalists: a fired city manager, a police chief on leave, and two major financial missteps. The City Hall reporter must show initiative in building sources and aggressively pursue public records to get beneath the surface of meeting coverage and official public statements. The ability to report and write breaking news and enterprise for the Surprise Republic, azcentral, Valley & State and Page One is critical. You must be willing to blog daily and tweet regularly. Multimedia training will be provided. This position reports to West Valley Community Editor Venita James.
We also are adding another reporter to our Maricopa County team. We’re looking for an aggressive reporter with demonstrated ability to quickly turn sophisticated enterprise and explanatory pieces. This journalist will help cover the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and the dozens of departments within the county. The reporter will work closely with county investigative reporter Yvonne Wingett to develop this beat. This reporter will be responsible for coverage areas important to the county, which may include the budget, health, environmental services, homeless issues, parks, animal control, property taxes and elections. This reporter must be able to multitask. He or she will have to juggle long-range stories with breaking news, and write for multiple platforms – Page One and Valley & State, azcentral.com, our political blog and Twitter and Facebook. The reporter must be a team player, willing to work closely with other reporters who cover Maricopa County, the Sheriff's Office and the County Attorney's Office. The ideal candidate is a self-starter who has a proven track record of excellent beat management and source development, demonstrated a devotion to watchdog journalism and displayed strong writing skills. Previous experience covering state or local government is a plus. Maricopa County, the fourth-largest county in the United States based on population, has about 13,000 employees. This position reports to State and County Editor Christina Leonard.
In addition, we are going to add a Phoenix public safety position. This is more than a police beat, though the primary agencies being covered are Phoenix police and fire departments. The job entails covering major crimes, fires, disasters in Phoenix for the Metro desk, but also identifying and writing about important crime and public safety trends in Phoenix, examining public policy developments that affect public safety, probing administrative and bureaucratic problems within the public-safety agencies, keeping a finger on the pulse of city residents as it relates to crime and public safety concerns, and working closely with public safety reporters in the community newsrooms on stories with Valleywide implications. A key requirement for this position is the ability to write big-picture stories quickly and succinctly and a nose for watchdog coverage. Experience doing data-driven analysis is a plus. This position reports to Metro night editor Vinton Supplee. Hours will be roughly 10 am - 6 pm M-F.
If you’re interested in any of these positions, notify Local News Center Director Cherrill Crosby by the end of day, Monday, Aug. 2, with links to no more than eight of your best stories in the past two years and a letter explaining why you should be considered and what you would bring to the job.
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