Texas-Based Clean Energy Reporter

Job Description

Inside Climate News is seeking an experienced Texas-based reporter to cover renewable energy and lay the foundation for a statewide conversation on the issues that surround it. Texas, a national leader in wind energy production, delivers electricity through its own grid to 90 percent of residents in the oil-and-gas-rich state. The reporter will produce a body of work, both quick-turn and long-range, illuminating the progress of clean energy adoption and opposition to it; relevant regulatory and policy developments, both local and national; and the flow of federal dollars from the IRA and other sources, and their equitable distribution. All of that work would be produced within the context of threats from hurricanes, droughts and other accelerating dangers of climate change. The staff position would be the third in our Texas bureau.

Job Summary                                             

This is a demanding position that requires advanced reporting skills across a complicated landscape of interrelated issues. The successful applicant will be responsible for covering the Texas agencies charged with regulating the industry, skilled at conveying the business story and able go below the surface using government and court documents, data and human sources. This reporter must also have well-honed writing skills and a demonstrated track record of accuracy, fairness and nonpartisanship. 

Our News Organization

• Founded in 2007, Inside Climate News is an independent, nonprofit, non-partisan news organization covering the most important story in human history. With 35 full-time staff members, it is one of the largest environmental newsrooms in the country.
• As part of its work in the public interest, ICN has established a collaborative local reporting network (that includes the bureau in Texas), and works to strengthen the practice of climate and environmental justice journalism and train the next generation of journalists.
• We have a nucleus in New York, a presence in Washington, D.C., Boston and Chicago and staff working from California to Maine. Good ideas propel the operation, wherever they originate.
• We have earned national recognition for our work and many of the most prestigious awards in journalism, including the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting (2013) and recognition as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service (2016).
• For more about ICN, please see our About page.

Inside Climate News is committed to diversity, equity and inclusion and welcomes applications from candidates of any background or identity. We are an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate in hiring or employment on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, marital status, sexual orientation, national origin, citizenship, age, disability, veteran status or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local law.

To Apply:  Please send resume, clips and a cover letter to jobs@insideclimatenews.org, or email Executive Editor Vernon Loeb  (vernon.loeb@insideclimatenews.org) and Managing Editor Jamie Smith Hopkins (jamie.hopkins@insideclimatenews.org).

Job Requirements

Qualifications

This reporter will need to be a self-starter and team player who works with a high degree of collegiality. These additional qualifications, or their equivalents, are essential:

• A minimum of roughly five years of reporting and writing experience, with clips that demonstrate an ability to break news, write analytically and have impact.   
• Knowledge of climate science, the business of energy and social justice. 
• A solid work ethic, a collaborative attitude and a demonstrated passion for journalism.
• The ability to bring diverse, unique insights to our coverage of renewables and the energy transition in Texas, including how  they affect communities of color and low-income neighborhoods already most burdened by air and water pollution. 

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