Job Description

Help us produce journalism that makes a difference in Alaska

Update, June 4: Applications will be accepted through June 9, 2025.

The Anchorage Daily News, Alaska's most-read news source, is seeking at least three reporters who are looking for a newsroom where they can produce the best work of their careers, delivering high impact in a place where rich, complex, interesting stories are waiting to be told.

Our ideal candidates have a solid, proven record in the basics: accuracy, context, fairness, ethics, clear and engaging writing, ability to consistently meet deadlines and work in a highly collaborative environment. They think critically, see stories, know how to report them and see paths through spin and process. They're driven to report not just what happened but why. 

We have a focus on and commitment to audiences — serving them, listening to them, growing them, retaining them. The reporters we're looking for need to understand online news and have a proven ability to work as part of a team. We’re big enough to have a robust readership and wide, deep reach, but small enough to make decisions quickly and for individuals to have an immediate and significant impact. We have smart, demanding readers who know what good journalism looks like and hold us to a high standard, and the reporters we hope to hire would be joining a team of talented, experienced journalists who care about Alaska, the place and its people. We've won three Pulitzer Prizes for Public Service, most recently in 2020.

We're especially interested in hearing from reporter applicants who have experience in any of the following:

• Covering local breaking and spot news. Whether you're reporting on a car accident, a wildfire, a destructive storm, a public safety incident or something that readers are seeing and discussing on social media, your instinct is to track down clear, accurate information quickly. You're resourceful and creative in finding sources, and you might be adept at navigating public agency records, but you're also reflective when it comes to reporting on sensitive topics and building trust with community members. You can roll with quick turns on daily stories and are also skilled at building a foundation of reporting that may lead to enterprise coverage.

• Covering local government, neighborhoods and communities. You're not interested in public meeting coverage for the sake of meeting coverage, but you can take a look at a city assembly meeting agenda and find all kinds of curiosities that warrant further reporting. As elected officials and local administrators shape policy, you're thinking about the everyday people from all walks of life who are affected, what they care about and what concerns they have. People know they can turn to you when they want to talk about stubborn challenges in the place where we live, and you're as interested in diving into the nuances of the problem as you are in reporting on innovative solutions others have implemented, or steps that people have taken to build and strengthen their communities. 

• Covering K-12 and/or higher education. When reporting on education, you see how discussions surrounding schools and universities are often a proxy for debates about other issues people care deeply about, and you can connect the dots between education policy and broader impacts to everything from public health to the economy to neighborhoods. In this role, you might cover school district funding, scholastic achievements, child care affordability or changes to programs. You're skilled at helping readers examine these issues through the eyes of various stakeholders, including families with school-age children, university students, neighborhood residents, local leaders, educators and local taxpayers.

• Covering health care and public health. Health care, like much else in Alaska, is expensive here, and some services — for example, behavioral health services — are especially limited even in the state's biggest city. You're interested in helping readers understand the systems, structures, innovations and limitations of Alaska's health care system. You're also intrigued by all the ways you can slice a health reporting beat, whether that's reporting on measles vaccination rates and bird flu outbreaks, efforts to bolster youth mental health, creative ways to deliver care to far-flung communities or medical providers accused of misconduct. 

• Covering rural communities in Alaska. Our ideal candidate would have experience covering issues important to residents of rural communities in Alaska, and is able to build relationships with residents in those communities to report on what those residents care about most. You might be covering issues that emerge at local government meetings, the school district budget, community events, subsistence harvests and regulations or resource development projects in the region. (In this case, you'd report on largely Alaska Native communities in the Northwest Arctic Borough and the North Slope Borough, producing coverage for both ADN and the Arctic Sounder, a weekly newspaper we publish that is circulated in those areas.)

If you're interested in submitting an application but feel that you don't have the type of experience we've described here, or feel that you have important skills we haven't included, please don't hesitate to apply and tell us about yourself. 

The Anchorage Daily News is independently owned and values an inclusive workforce reflecting a range of lived experiences, and we also value work-life balance and workplace flexibility. We're located in a diverse, highly livable city of nearly 300,000 with Alaska and all its outdoor opportunities right out the door. We offer competitive pay and benefits, and we’ll relocate the right candidate. 

Email a resume, samples of your work and a note about why you want to work with us to Editor Vicky Ho at news-jobs@adn.com, or submit those materials through LinkedIn.

All applicants are considered for all positions without regard to race, religion, color, sex, gender, sexual orientation, pregnancy, age, national origin, ancestry, physical/mental disability, medical condition, military/veteran status, genetic information, marital status, ethnicity, alienage or any other protected classification, in accordance with applicable federal, state, and local laws. Equal access to programs, services, and employment is available to all qualified persons.

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