Gawker is hiring a gossip reporter. Or perhaps more precisely: a scandal reporter. We're looking for someone interested in penetrating the personal and professional lives of titans of industry, finance, and culture. Someone who can jump on and assiduously follow the tale of the recent dickpic-tweeting political figure, as well as reliably develop compelling enterprise stories about the lives and misdeeds of powerful people and report out our prodigious well of incoming tips.
This is not a beat devoted to celebrity, or nightlife, or reality television programs. It is devoted to power and its discontents, and it is to be approached not with the manufactured moralizing of certain tabloid gossip scolds, but with a sense of humor and fun. One of Gawker Media's foundational principles is the notion that fascinating information circulating among the corridors of the anointed—Did you know she is gay? Have you heard about what he did to his assistant?—ought to be available to the digital hoi polloi. And that's what this beat is about.
The ideal candidate will have several years of reporting—not just writing—experience, and have the capacity to develop and relay reliably true information about the world outside him- or herself. She will know her way around a courtroom. He will know how to obtain a police report. She will be motivated and available to attend the sort of social events where guards are let down and stories flow—not to write about who was at what party, but to gather string and keep her ear to the ground. He will be comfortable ambushing people.
We may also, depending on the candidates, be hiring entry- and mid-level general assignment reporters to cover and advance stories of national interest. Candidates should be familiar with what we do here at Gawker, brimming with good ideas, and ready to jump down rabbit holes in pursuit of good stories.
Why work here? For a detailed precis on Gawker's many virtues as an employer, go here. For mid-career journalists, specifically: Anyone who has been working in this business for any substantial period of time will be familiar with the soul-crushing feeling of having your hands around a good story and being prevented—for reasons of cowardice, propriety, institutional blindness, politics—from publishing it. We don't really have that problem here. You will have the freedom to pursue whatever good stories you can bring to light. You will have the opportunity to work alongside some of the sharpest, funniest, most cutthroat reporters and writers in pixels. And your work will be seen by the people you want to see it.
To apply, please send a résumé and clips to jobs@gawker.com. Do not attach your résumé to the email; rather, include the text within the email. We will review all applications and contact you if we'd like to meet you. Please don't follow up.