Education Reporter

USA TODAY Co., Inc. is a diversified media company with expansive reach at the national and local level dedicated to empowering and enriching communities. Through trusted brands like the USA TODAY NETWORK and Newsquest 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. This role focuses on deepening audience connections through stories that resonate with students, parents, employers, taxpayers, faculty, and administrators across public and private four-year colleges, universities, and technical colleges in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin’s university system is at a pivotal point, with turnover in key leadership roles. The ideal candidate will navigate budgets, funding, policy concerns, and political and demographic changes shaping higher education. This reporter must demonstrate curiosity and flexibility, covering topics such as student debt, research, campus trends, and institutional reinvention.

Responsibilities

• Produce creative stories to attract new readers while delivering in-depth enterprise content for longtime subscribers.
• Tell stories in text, audio, and video formats, adapting to the needs of each piece.
• Work quickly and accurately, balancing breaking news with in-depth reporting.
• Optimize content for digital audiences with strong headlines, links, video, photo galleries, and SEO.
• Commit to diversity in topics and sources, reflecting all facets of higher education and its intersection with diverse communities.
• Collaborate with other reporters to provide broader context on stories spanning multiple beats.
• Build a rich source network and place issues in state and national context.
• Maintain a daily beat while identifying opportunities for investigative or exploratory reporting.
• 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, with copy-editing skills to produce clean, accurate, and publication-ready content.
• Passion for news and content that engages audiences on social platforms.
• Comfort using social media to enhance reporting and distribute stories.
• Understanding of reporting ethics and sourcing.
• Ability to excel in a fast-paced, digital-first news environment.
• Collaborative mindset and experience working with teams on major stories.
• Valid driver’s license, reliable transportation, and minimum liability insurance required by state law.

Application notes

Submit a resume (1–2 pages), a cover letter outlining your approach to the role, and links to 3–6 online samples of your work. Samples should reflect your ability to produce content relevant to this position.