Digital Football Journalist Vacancy at Manchester Evening News

Deadline: 14 August 2017

Salary: Competitive

The Manchester Evening News is seeking to recruit a digital football journalist to join the team to create United and City content and video that fans want to devour. This exciting opportunity is an excellent platform to display your work for a website which has in excess of 70 million pages view a month. Everyone covers United and City but not to the brilliant extent we do at the Manchester Evening News.

Reporting to the Football Editor, you will create compelling content and video on the clubs – and promote it and engage with fans on social media. You’ll be bursting with ideas which embrace the best of digital journalistic practice. And you’ll know where to dig out the stories that matter to the fans by being all over the social channels and forums that live and breathe Old Trafford and the Etihad.

The role will offer flexibility and you’ll effectively be given a blank canvas – to shape the role into what you want it to be. If you prove yourself on the desk you’ll be rewarded – with the chance to cover games and join the match rota, as well as attend press conferences. If you have a feature idea or a story tip from a contact, you’ll be given the time to work on it. We want unique content that chimes with fans and you’ll be given the freedom to experiment in all areas. If you’ve got something you’d like to try for United or City, we want you to try it!

We will give you a platform to shine digitally, grow your ‘brand’, express your opinion to a global audience and cover two of the most exciting clubs in Europe. We want you to innovate and take our coverage to the next level.

The ideal candidate:

• You’ll have live-blogging skills because you’ll be running our daily and match-day blogs providing up-to-the-minute compelling content
• You’ll have the ability to hit deadlines throughout the day to fit in with our publishing schedule
• You’ll have video editing skills and the ability to spot video opportunities. You’re also comfortable shooting footage on your iPhone.
• You’ll be comfortable in front of the camera as well – our football writers are never shy in voicing their opinions.
• You’ll live on social media and spot stories and fan-issues ahead of the opposition
• You’ll be strong on SEO and know to get the best out of social media posts – we want a natural when it comes to wording, timings and tone
• And you’ll be NCTJ qualified or have the relevant experience that will make you tailor-made for this role.

Skills/experience:

• Trinity Mirror or equivalent journalist qualification (or relevant time-served experience).
• Comprehensive knowledge about football with strong content judgement
• Excellent writing skills
• An expert digital storyteller with a thorough understanding of how to make engaging content
• A skilled user of social media to engage audiences, source ideas and share content
• Comfortable at getting out and about and making contacts
• Ability to edit video and audio
• Ability to work well under deadline pressure
• An exemplary team player, willing to work flexibly according to the football calendar
• Energy, enthusiasm and self-motivation
• Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written
• Flexible approach to shifts.
• Full driving licence.

Please click here to apply via the Trinity Mirror careers website.