Features/Special Projects Reporters at The Explainer

Features/Special Projects Reporters

The Explainer is an online news and public policy analysis platform, designed to innovatively distil and disseminate content grounded in fact and journalistic objectivity. The mission of The Explainer is to directly impact the daily lives of citizens by providing background, context and depth in the analysis of core development and governance issues in Nigeria, Africa and the world. The Explainer is out to inform citizens, and shape public policy and governance outcomes to promote effective service delivery and good governance.

The platform anchors its content strategy on the rigour of balanced, investigative, and citizens-centered journalism, which aims to enhance the knowledge of the public on the most important political, economic, cultural and other governance issues of the day. To operationalise its strategy, The Explainer nneds to recruit agile, passionate, committed and results-driven Features/Special Projects Reporters with the tenacity to generate compelling multi-media stories.

Roles And Responsibilities

• Engage in the ideation stage of the features copy generation process
• Research and draft compelling features on democracy, human rights, culture and governance issues across Nigeria, Africa and the world.
• Follow up, investigate and generate copies beyond the typical news headlines using multi-media strategy of platform convergence.
• Reading, writing and researching leads for feature stories
• Attending relevant events, press conferences, fairs, convening and conferences
• Travel around Nigeria, and other parts of Africa for special features writing projects
•  Undertake desk analysis and generate key explainer articles on policy and governance issues in Nigeria, Africa and around the world.
• Collect and present primary and secondary data on themes and topics of public interest relating to human rights, democracy and accountable governance in Nigeria, Africa and around the world.
• Write up summaries of reports, books and publications to be published on The Explainer and other platforms.
• Lead in the generation of co-created content to be published in partnership with other media platforms.  

Skills And Competencies

Candidates for this position must possess the following skills and competencies:

• Compelling prose writing and presentation skills
• Ability to generate feature stories with multi-media elements, including text, video, still pictures and audio formats.
• Flair to build relationships with sources for exclusive features copies
• Possess the keenness and passion to generate news feature leads and find the needed credible sources for the copy.
• Ability to analyse and contextualise policy issues beyond the sketchy limits of breaking news cycles.
• Capacity to network and co-create content with other news outlets within the ecosystem.
• Must be a self-starter with the capacity to work independently under tight deadlines to deliver copies.  

Qualifications

• First degree in Mass Communications in Mass Communications, History, International Relations or other related humanities or social science disciplines will be required.