Job Opening in McClatchy’s D.C. Bureau

This comes via a fellow member of the Asian American Journalists Association, who reports that this is a rarely posted opportunity.

McClatchy’s Washington Bureau seeks a driven, energetic and experienced journalist to join our award-winning team of regional reporters. You’ll cover Washington, D.C., for individual papers around McClatchy. This is a demanding job, requiring someone able to manage both the news and the needs and wants of editors both in Washington and your local papers. You’ll have significant sway in how you spend your time, but are expected to break news, watchdog your delegation and offer insightful enterprise that makes a difference to readers and the community both in your states and across the country.

This job requires:

• Excellent writing and reporting skills.
• Developing extensive sources among lawmakers, their staffs and lobbyists, as well as local government officials and experts in the states you cover.
• An ability to work well with editors at multiple papers, along with editors in Washington. Together they will develop a consistent and compelling reporting agenda.
• Energy, flexibility and the ability to monitor a vast amount of information for several very different and unique readerships, matched with discerning judgment.
• Understanding how to allocate your time will be of paramount importance.
• Aggressiveness, including an ability to ask hard questions of powerful people without being intimidated, combined with a strong sense of fairness and responsibility.
• An ability to tell many kinds of stories, including strong enterprise pieces as well as breaking news coverage.
• An ability to write quickly, with clarity and authority, often about complex matters, on deadline.
• The ability to interpret Washington politics and policymaking for readers whose interests lie far beyond the Beltway.
• A minimum of five years’ reporting experience.
• Knowledge of campaign finance and experience with investigative reporting is a plus.
• Interest and experience in multimedia reporting is a plus.

Interested candidates should contact Barb Barrett, Regionals Editor, at bbarrett@mcclatchydc.com. E-mails should be accompanied by an attached resume with references, cover letter and half a dozen clips.