Content Strategist - Remote

USA TODAY Co., Inc. is a diversified media company with expansive reach at the national and local level dedicated to empowering and enriching communities. We seek to inspire, inform, and connect audiences as a sustainable, growth-focused media and digital marketing solutions company. Through our trusted brands, including the USA TODAY NETWORK—comprised of the national publication, USA TODAY, and local media organizations—and Newsquest, a wholly-owned subsidiary operating in the United Kingdom, we provide essential journalism, local content, and digital experiences to audiences and businesses.

About the role

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, part of the USA TODAY NETWORK, is seeking an experienced reporter with multimedia skills to advance our daily, enterprise, and explanatory higher education coverage. Our aim is to deepen and grow our connection with our audience by fully tapping into stories that resonate with students, parents, employers, taxpayers, faculty, and administrators. Coverage includes public and private four-year colleges and universities as well as technical colleges—a broad range of stories requiring a mix of interests and skills.

In Wisconsin, the state’s university system is at a pivotal point, coping with turnover in three key roles: the system president, chancellor of the state’s flagship university in Madison, and athletic director. The ideal candidate will understand budgets and funding, explain policy concerns, and navigate the political and demographic changes creating upheaval in higher education. This reporter must demonstrate curiosity and shift easily between topics such as the burden of student debt, research, campus trends, and institutions’ efforts to reimagine their mission.

Responsibilities

• Reach new audiences by mixing creative stories aimed at drawing new readers and in-depth enterprise for longtime subscribers.
• Demonstrate flexibility in storytelling approaches, using text, audio, and video to identify the right format for each story.
• Produce content quickly when needed, in-depth when called for, and always with accuracy.
• Optimize content for digital platforms with strong headlines, links, video, photo galleries, and SEO.
• Commit to diversity in topics and sources, exploring all facets of higher education and its intersection with people of different backgrounds.
• Partner with other reporters when stories touch multiple beats to bring greater context to readers.
• Build a rich source network and put issues in state and national context.
• Maintain the rhythm of a daily beat while identifying topics ripe for broader exploration or investigation.
• Travel on short notice to cover breaking news events.

Requirements

• Bachelor's or master’s in communications, journalism, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Minimum of three years of reporting experience.
• Strong command of newswriting grammar and style.
• Strong copy-editing skills to produce clean, accurate, and publication-ready content.
• Passion and enthusiasm for news and content that performs well on social platforms.
• Comfort using social media platforms to enhance reporting and deliver stories.
• Understanding of reporting ethics and sourcing.
• Ability to excel in a fast-paced, digital-first news environment.
• Collaborative team player for major stories.
• Valid driver’s license, reliable transportation, and minimum liability insurance required by state law.