Education Reporter

Job Description

Do you have a passion for education reporting and the chops to build a beat around it? We want to hear from you.

WPLN News needs a reporter who excels at answering pressing questions during a pivotal time in Tennessee education. Rising housing costs are pushing more families into suburban and rural school districts; a wide achievement gap persists along racial and economic lines; and the state is in the middle of an intense debate over school vouchers.

In higher education, Nashville is known as "Athens of the South" for its many institutions of higher learning, including four historically Black colleges and universities, other nationally ranked schools such as Vanderbilt University, and more than a dozen public and private four-year and two-year institutions

Amid the swirl of educational philosophies in a Southern state, your reporting will have a real impact. You’ll help shape the conversation around public policy, gain regional and national attention with your reporting, and help our audience better understand the systems of power that govern and fund education in our region.

What would you be doing?
Here are the job responsibilities for a beat reporter at WPLN News:

• Work 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, with nights and weekends as necessary.
• Produce 2-3 originally reported stories each week, a mix of short-term and long-term.
• Incorporate advanced reporting and storytelling techniques (such as record requests, complex scene-building, vivid writing and nontraditional story forms)
• Track education bills and provide timely updates with context during the legislative session.
• Demonstrate a deep knowledge of the region in context and analysis
• Appear on and provide reporting assets for our daily show, This Is Nashville, as requested.
• Communicate proactively in daily news meetings and with other reporters on stories that overlap with your expertise.
• Pitch enterprising stories proactively and build sourcing to support this work.
• Participate in the weekend reporting rotation.
• Be available to cover breaking news and scheduled special coverage as needed.
• Represent the station in fundraising activities and station events.
• Help foster a positive workplace culture.

Community Engagement
Participates in community engagement, especially with the goal of elevating the lived experiences of BIPOC and other underserved communities. This includes, but is not limited to, developing ongoing relationships with sources, speaking to community groups and classes. or regularly taking part in formal newsroom partnerships.

What’s WPLN News?
WPLN News is Middle Tennessee’s NPR station. As a nonprofit newsroom, our reporting is nuanced, fact based and — most importantly — community driven.

We focus on the big picture, revealing systemic issues and the fight of people working to fix them. By connecting the dots, we contextualize the news of the day and empower the community to get involved. Our reporters question people and institutions in power and elevate the voices of people most impacted. Our newsroom recognizes that journalists come to the table with their own experiences and perspectives, and we treat that as a strength rather than a weakness. We aim to build trust and respect among colleagues so that we can have difficult conversations about both our work and workplace.

Our newsroom helps journalists realize their potential on the job, while also giving them space to live a full life outside of it. We strive to perform at the highest level: In recent years, our newsroom has received a Peabody, a National Murrow Award and a Pulitzer finalist nod, as well as the Daniel Schorr Prize for the best public media journalist under 35.

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