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Journalist wanted for coronavirus coverage | $100 per article

Added 2020-04-01 20:06:10 +0000 UTC

COMPANY/PUBLICATION: HIAGO

Hiago (http://www.hiago.com) is an early-stage startup in Silicon Valley building tools for better civic engagement. Given that Los Angeles is an epicenter of activity with respect to coronavirus, we are looking for a local community journalist who can help us cover how different cities across Southern California are handling the coronavirus.

Our blog should be the hub for new and creative ways that cities are connecting to their residents. Two of our early employees are very experienced community journalists in the Bay Area prior to becoming product managers.

For most local governments, civic engagement has tended to be in person at public meetings. Our team is building an app that helps people with busy lives to engage with local government remotely. Now that residents are being directed to shelter at home to slow the spread of coronavirus, or COVID-19, we’re seeing a sudden boom in remote solutions for city governments. We need your help to capture those solutions and create content that establishes Hiago as a thought leader in technology for civic engagement.

HERE’S WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR:

News articles, feature stories, news features, or listicles (in moderation) that tell the stories of how local governments are staying connected to their residents and moving city business forward during the coronavirus pandemic. We want to know what tools they’re using, what’s working, what the challenges are and how they overcome them. You can do a deep dive on one part of the government process that is especially interesting, or you can do a profile of all the ways one city is doing distance engagement.

WHAT WE ARE NOT LOOKING FOR:

Personal essays or opinion pieces, unless you have a strong reason to believe that it fits our mission and would be of interest to our audience.

OUR AUDIENCE:

Californian city officials and activists (I use activist loosely here, to mean any resident who might engage with city government).

CRITERIA:

300-1,000 words (flexible, but we will publish longer stories less frequently)
Your story should contain something newsworthy or of timely interest to our audience.
Your story should have original reporting (quotes from interviews that you conducted, references to primary sources, etc.It should not be a regurgitation of someone else’s article, although you may use the same primary sources that another reporter uses.)

TONE/VOICE:

The coronavirus pandemic is a tragedy—one that is likely to worsen in the coming weeks. Take it seriously, and balance that with an optimistic, solutions-focused tone.

We encourage you to use your writing skills to draw in your readers right in the first paragraph. Your foremost goal is to deliver accurate information, but good writing that is a delight to read should also be a priority.

PITCHES AND ASSIGNMENTS:

YOU pitch the story. Be specific about who you’ll contact and which city or cities your coverage will touch. Tell us your expected word count and article type. As we get to know your writing style, we may reach out to you with an assignment, but at first, you should pitch 3-5 story ideas, and discuss it with your editor (Mark or Sarah).

SUBMITTING AND EDITING:

Share a Google Doc with us when you have a draft ready. If we have editing suggestions, we’ll leave comments, questions, or suggest edits in “suggest mode.” Any punctuation, spelling, grammar or other minor errors we will fix in “edit mode.” We will not change the meaning of a sentence or piece without checking with you.

STYLE GUIDE

We’ll use the latest version of the AP Stylebook.

Citizens: When we’re talking about the constituents of a city official, we do not call them “citizens,” because immigrants who are not citizens and live in a representative’s district or city are still constituents. Depending on the context, you may use “residents,” “neighbors,” or “community members.”

Councilmember: When possible, use “councilmember” instead of “councilman” or “councilwoman.” We encourage the use of all gender-neutral job titles. If “councilman” or “councilwoman” is used in a quote, do not alter the quote.

HOW TO CONTACT SOURCES :

When you reach out to sources, we encourage you to present yourself as a journalist writing for a professional blog. You are welcome to explain the Hiago mission, but this may create more confusion than clarity.

WHAT IF MAKING CONTACT ISN’T POSSIBLE?

All writers should make a diligent attempt to contact multiple relevant sources for each blog post.

Stories may still be allowed to run if they lack primary sources, but this will be discretionary. In any case, all stories should offer some insight beyond the materials that are already being provided by city officials.

JOB SUMMARY: