Are You a Journalist Who Loves Local News? Patch is Hiring

Are you passionate about local and hyperlocal reporting? Do you love breaking news? Are you tired of "viral content," and eager to produce something people truly care about? If so, Patch wants you!

Patch is the only national platform for hyperlocal news and events. We cover over 1,007 towns, communities and neighborhoods across the country — and we're growing. Over the last 2 years, our traffic has risen 95 percent to over 20 million unique visitors per month -- due in large part to our stellar, 90-person editorial team.

Don't take our word for it. Check out this article in the Wall Street Journal.

To help us up our game, we're seeking energetic, committed journalists to cover community news in the following areas:

• Atlanta
• Boston
• Charlotte
• Chicago
• Cincinnati
• Dallas
• Denver
• Indianapolis
• Las Vegas
• New Orleans
• New York City
• Pittsburgh
• St. Louis

On a daily basis, our local field editors:

• spot scoops, break stories and report them out in real time
• write headlines; select photos; practice quality SEO
• aggregate/curate local news of interest
• work collaboratively with colleagues and independently when necessary
• curate home pages and newsletters
• run Patch's social media channels, including Facebook and Twitter
• use Google Analytics and other metrics tools to monitor performance and improve tactics
• use digital tools, such as CrowdTangle and Dataminr, to keep tabs on local happenings and organizations

More about you:

• You have at least 6 years experience as a reporter and/or editor.
• You thrive in a fast-paced, creatively demanding work environment.
• You appreciate the value of local news and are weary of click bait.
• You're plugged into the breaking-news cycle and know how to stay ahead of it.
• You're tech-savvy and excited to experiment with new tools and formats in digital media.
• You're a damn good writer — capable of turning out a wicked headline and sharp lede on the fly — and your prose is reliably clean and engaging. You're also fast — this isn't a weekly.
• You're versatile — capable of writing or editing a breaking crime story, an inspirational local story, a longer investigative piece and a viral hit that readers love to share.
• You love a challenge and have a soft spot for the underdog.

More about us:

• We're a great place to advance one's digital journalism skills and to develop your career in the rapidly evolving media landscape.
• We're a boot-strapped start-up trying to innovate our way to a new, scalable and sustainable way of supporting and practicing community journalism.
• We value A players. We rely on a team of high performers who are committed to each other and to their communities. Our reporters and editors have worked at The New York Times, the Baltimore Sun, the Des Moines Register and other top-notch publications.
• We value team work and help each other out.
• We're innovating: Patch has invested in the latest digital tools to help us stay on top of breaking and community news.
• We're on a mission. In an anonymous company survey at the end of last year, 95 percent of our editors said they found their work meaningful and fulfilling.

Think you'd be a good fit? Know a reporter who would be? Submit a resume, cover letter and clips to editjobs@patch.com.