Reporter job – Mlive Media Group – Walker, MI

Required Education, Experience and Skills:

• Bachelor’s degree in Journalism or Communications or related field required
• Minimum of one – two years of journalism experience with a proven ability in reporting and writing required
• Proven experience building, maintaining and engaging an active audience
• Ability to work under deadline pressure and prioritize tasks appropriately
• Solid understanding of news writing, journalistic ethics and story structure
• Experience with search engine optimization practices
• Experience taking photos
• Basic HTML or equivalent web language a plus
• Knowledge of the methods and tools used to deliver content across a variety of platforms such as Moveable Type CMS, SCC Budgeting and Archiving System, Smartphones
• Understanding imperatives of multiple platforms – print, mobile, Internet, etc.
• Mastery of social media and digital interaction
• Proven ability to utilize a broad set of tools to tell stories and engage the audience

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Balanced and factual
• Timely and topical
• Well-sourced and contextually correct

• Frequent, incremental posting throughout the day
• Story aggregation and topical link-posting
• Monitoring and engaging in reader comment streams on local market website impact pages
• Elevating comments into new posts when appropriate
• Interacting on social media platforms, with story shares, objective commentary, and promoting the news organization’s content initiatives
• Understanding and employing the means for monitoring audience interest and competitors’ posting on your topic, including setting up Google alerts, Twitter and RSS feeds

• Taking photographs and posting it to the web as well as uploading to any internal production systems
• Using laptops and smartphones for remote web reporting
• Using the Moveable Type content management system, and any future CMS

Working Conditions and Physical Requirements:

General Office Environment. Significant driving required.

MLive Media Group is an audience-first, digitally focused media company encompassing all content, sales and marketing operations for: MLive.com, The Grand Rapids Press, The Muskegon Chronicle, Kalamazoo Gazette, The Jackson Citizen Patriot, The Ann Arbor News, The Flint Journal, The Saginaw News, The Bay City Times and the Advance Weeklies in Grand Rapids, as well as several related entities. In addition to being Michigan’s #1 news and information provider, MLive Media Group is Michigan’s largest local media advertising network, allowing advertisers to reach local audiences in communities across the state.

MLive Media Group is a part of Advance Local, one of the largest media groups in the U.S. reaching more than 40 million consumers through its 12 local news and information websites that rank #1 among local media in their respective markets, and more than 30 newspapers. Our affiliated websites and newspapers are well known for their award-winning journalism. Advance Local is part of Advance Publications, along with Condé Nast and American City Business Journals.