Currently hiring: Visual Journalist, Audience Engagement Editor, Health Care and Public Health Reporter, and Production Coordinator, stringers and interns. Read details below.
Cascadia Daily News is an equal-opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations, and ordinances.
About Cascadia Daily News: CDN is an award-winning, locally owned newspaper created in a brick-and-mortar newsroom in Bellingham, Washington by local reporters, columnists, editors and visual journalists. CDN debuted online on Jan. 24, 2022, and published its first weekly print edition on March 2, 2022. We deliver news throughout the day on our website seven days a week and publish a weekly print edition, available at newsstands and retail locations, and by mail and print-replica e-edition to subscribers on Friday mornings.
Visual Journalist
Cascadia Daily News, a news startup in Northwest Washington state, seeks a self-motivated, curious photojournalist to join a vibrant newsroom covering a growing two-county region for news, sports, outdoor recreation and lifestyle stories. We prefer candidates with a strong background in engaging and creative visual storytelling. Our ideal candidate is someone who can report and write, along with recording and editing video. You would join a robust 15-person newsroom with a mix of veteran and young journalists.
Core responsibilities:
The CDN visual journalist will join two other visual journalists (one FT, one PT) in covering a variety of assignments on a 24/7 basis. This photographer will be expected to find photo and story ideas and juggle daily assignments along with long-term projects.
We are a newsroom that appreciates traditional documentary work and would welcome our new hire to pitch in-depth projects several times a year. We also know how much our readers enjoy this kind of storytelling.
Our visual journalists create content for our daily digital channels (website and social), as well as our weekly print edition.
Required skills:
- At least two years working as a visual journalist at a news publication and working in a newsroom with reporters and editors
- Proficiency in using lighting for a variety of environments
- Ability to record and edit video, with ability to train and coach others in the newsroom. Ability to gather audio.
- Ability to pitch ideas on a consistent basis
- Curiosity about the communities and ability to engage subjects for storytelling. Willingness to be in situations from breaking news coverage to portrait photography. Open to engaging the public in new community environments
- Sense of urgency in covering breaking news
- Proficiency in producing visual stories
- Experience shooting a wide range of assignments — from business to sports to investigations
- A working vehicle and driver’s license is required.
Desired skills:
- Experience writing video and audio scripts
- Drone pilot’s license (CDN has a drone.)
- Conversational Spanish
Salary and benefits:
- Salary range is $55,000 to $65,000 annually, depending on experience.
- Full medical, dental and vision benefits, two weeks initial vacation, 10 days sick leave, company-issued laptop and monitors, mobile phone allowance, a designated parking space and a generous 401(k) plan.
Location: This position will be mostly in the Bellingham office, but will also involve some travel and ability to work from home if needed. Work days and hours can vary.
Moving Stipend: Up to $1,500.
Hours: Full-time, primarily Monday through Friday, but hours can also include weekends, depending on the news needs and public events.
This position reports to the Managing Editor.
Start date: Open until filled.
Apply: Send a cover letter, resume, and/or work examples to rhondaprast@cascadiadaily.com with the subject line: Visual Journalist.
The statements contained herein reflect general details as necessary to describe the principal functions of this job, the level of knowledge and skill typically required and the scope of responsibility, but they should not be considered an all-inclusive listing of work requirements. Individuals may perform other duties as assigned, including work in other functional areas to cover absences or relief, to equalize peak work periods or otherwise to balance the workload. Furthermore, these statements do not establish a contract for employment, nor do they alter the at-will nature of the party’s employment relationship. The employer retains the discretion to change and alter this description at its discretion.
Audience Engagement Editor
The award-winning news organization, Cascadia Daily News, is seeking a full-time Audience Engagement Editor for its newsroom in beautiful Bellingham, Washington.
CDN is a 24/7 digital newsroom with a weekly print edition on Fridays. You’ll partner with editors, reporters and visual journalists to strategically grow brand awareness, readership and subscriptions beyond current levels. There is potential for much higher readership for our three-year-old news startup, recognized in the region for ambitious storytelling and accountability journalism.
In the past year, we have been awarded a Murrow fellow to report from East Whatcom and Skagit counties, and a summer AAAS Mass Media fellow for science and environmental coverage.
As the Audience Engagement Editor, you will become a key part of our content and production process and will help develop strategies to attract new readers by coordinating the publishing of our staff’s work across multiple platforms. You will seek ways to retain current readers by actively engaging with them and building trust across a variety of publishing channels, including multiple social media accounts, newsletters, video and websites.
You will take the lead in creating new innovative connections to potential readers in a growing, two-county region of 360,000 residents. In particular, you will have a key role in the debut of our new Report for America health beat for summer 2025.
You will regularly analyze audience data to identify trends, tailor content to audience preferences, and collaborate with editorial teams to maximize story reach and impact. You’ll work with staff to help train them in audience-focused news reporting and storytelling.
Core responsibilities:
Social media management: Manage the newspaper’s accounts on platforms like Facebook, Bluesky, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Work with our editorial team to create engaging content; schedule posts and independently respond to user comments and interactions.
Community development: Encourage reader interaction through polls, Q&A sessions, live events and other interactive features that promote active participation and help grow subscribers and potential donations to our new Report for America initiative.
Newsletter development: Write compelling email newsletters and optimize delivery times to deliver targeted, impactful content to various audience segments.
Audience analytics: Monitor website traffic, social media metrics and other data to understand audience behavior, identify trends and refine content strategy.
Collaborate with cross-functional teams: Partner with editorial and business teams to ensure audience engagement strategies align with organizational goals, such as increasing subscription sales. Work closely with reporters and editors to incorporate audience feedback, identify high-engagement story angles and tailor content for different platforms. Coordinate public campaigns creatively relating CDN subject matter for print and digital, community Town Halls, staff appearances and other public events.
Trend analysis: Stay informed on emerging digital trends and audience engagement best practices to implement innovative strategies. Implement new distribution models for select audiences, who might not follow us on the website or in newsletters. Find ways to go where audiences are.
Qualifications:
- Two or more years of experience in journalism, preferably working for a newsroom or audience development.
- Two or more years managing social media platforms with a strong understanding of digital analytics media tools.
- Bachelor’s degree in journalism or related field.
Desired skills and traits:
- Excellent news judgment, writing and editing skills with the ability to craft engaging content tailored to each publishing channel.
- Knowledge and experience applying AP Style guidelines.
- Up-to-date knowledge of social media accounts and breakdown of audience traits for each.
- Data analytic skills to interpret audience insights and to guide strategy. Experience with real-time analytics tools.
- Familiarity with our publishing standards for social media, breaking news and diversity goals.
- Experience with organizing and participating in public forums and community sessions.
- Creative thinking to develop innovative engagement tactics and goal-setting for each quarter.
- Knowledge of SEO practices to optimize content visibility.
- Understanding of CDN journalistic ethics and standards.
- Able to meet deadlines.
- Curious, open to change, friendly and collaborative in a small newsroom environment.
Salary and benefits:
- $60,000 to $70,000 per year, depending on experience.
- Full medical, dental and vision benefits, two weeks initial vacation, 10 days sick leave, company-issued laptop and monitors, mobile phone allowance, a designated parking space and a generous 401(k) plan.
Location: This position is expected to be full-time in the newspaper office located in downtown Bellingham, Washington. Remote work is not an option.
Hours: Full-time, primarily Monday through Friday, but hours can also include weekends, depending on the news needs and public events.
This position reports to the Managing Editor.
Start date: Open until filled.
Apply: Send a cover letter and resume to rhondaprast@cascadiadaily.com with the subject line Audience Engagement Editor
The statements contained herein reflect general details as necessary to describe the principal functions of this job, the level of knowledge and skill typically required and the scope of responsibility, but they should not be considered an all-inclusive listing of work requirements. Individuals may perform other duties as assigned, including work in other functional areas to cover absences or relief, to equalize peak work periods or otherwise to balance the workload. Furthermore, these statements do not establish a contract for employment, nor do they alter the at-will nature of the party’s employment relationship. The employer retains the discretion to change and alter this description at its discretion.
Health Care and Public Health Reporter
Cascadia Daily News/Report for America
Core responsibilities:
The CDN health care and public health reporter will produce high-impact daily and enterprise stories about barriers to health coverage in a growing two-county region. This includes urban areas, rural agricultural communities and diverse ethnic populations underserved by traditional media. The reporter will delve into the challenges and benefits of a near-monopoly Catholic “not-for-profit” health provider, with a consumer focus on making services and networks easier to navigate.
Lacking a dedicated reporter, gaps in our coverage fall into three areas: 1) Aggressive accountability coverage of health care systems, providers and institutions in general; 2) enterprise stories about legal, social and other barriers to equitable coverage to readers living in varied communities (defined by age, place of residence, ethnic or social groups and other factors); and 3) explanatory journalism — including tips on access to health care tools, treatments and systems about which they may be unaware.
Desired skills:
- Bilingual Spanish
- Photography
- Data journalism
- Ability to write video and audio scripts
Salary and benefits:
- Salary range is $57,000 to $63,000 annually, depending on experience.
- Full medical, dental and vision benefits, two weeks initial vacation, 10 days sick leave, company-issued laptop and monitors, mobile phone allowance, a designated parking space and a generous 401(k) plan.
Location: This position is hybrid (some days in the newspaper office located in downtown Bellingham, Washington).
Moving Stipend: Up to $1,500.
Hours: Full-time, primarily Monday through Friday, but hours can also include weekends, depending on the news needs.
This position reports to the Managing Editor.
Start date: Report for America is a two-year program with a third year option. Positions begin in July 2025.
Apply: Fill out an application on the Report for America website by Feb. 3.
This position is sponsored in part by Report for America, a national service program that places talented emerging journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. Report for America is an initiative of The GroundTruth Project. All Report for America Newsroom Partners are Equal Opportunity.
The statements contained herein reflect general details as necessary to describe the principal functions of this job, the level of knowledge and skill typically required and the scope of responsibility, but they should not be considered an all-inclusive listing of work requirements. Individuals may perform other duties as assigned, including work in other functional areas to cover absences or relief, to equalize peak work periods or otherwise to balance the workload. Furthermore, these statements do not establish a contract for employment, nor do they alter the at-will nature of the party’s employment relationship. The employer retains the discretion to change and alter this description at its discretion.
Stringers
Cascadia Daily News seeks freelance reporters to write about business, health, sports (including assigned individual game coverage) and general news, as well as regular contributors to cover news topics in Skagit County and the San Juan Islands. Send resume, work examples and a letter of interest to newstips@cascadiadaily.com with subject line, “Contributor.”
Paid visual journalism internship
Internships are open to undergraduates and recent graduates. In return for your successful internship with flexible scheduling of roughly 20 hours per week for 10-12 weeks (weekend/holiday scheduling likely), we pay a stipend of $2,000. Applications accepted on a rolling basis. We are currently hiring for one visual journalism intern. Apply with a one-page letter of interest, one-page resume and work samples to Ron Judd, executive editor, at interns@cascadiadaily.com.
Visual journalism interns gets a rare chance to work in a vibrant Bellingham, Washington newsroom and help build a news org from the ground up, filling a news vacuum in Whatcom County by producing imagery for a broad range of news coverage, on deadline.
Candidates must be able to independently produce publication-ready, professional quality images with fact-checked captions, and occasionally create and produce video, for publication on cascadiadaily.com and in CDN’s weekly print editions.
Candidates should be self-starters who can respond quickly to assignments with little supervision, but also be willing to accept critiques and discuss strategies for improvement with the publication’s editors and award-winning staff photographers. Ownership of your own gear kit is highly beneficial.
Required skills:
- Applicants must have strong reporting, writing, and multimedia skills.
- Applicants must have a personal vehicle.
- Applicants must be willing to work nights and weekends.
- Applicants must be skilled in video.
- Proficiency with expected digital editing tools and common communications platforms.
- Experience producing news graphics and other visual elements is a plus.
Paid business office internships
Our business office interns get a rare chance to help promote and grow a local news organization. Internships are open to undergraduates and recent graduates. This is an on-site internship.
The ideal candidate will have the ability to efficiently and effectively multi-task across multifaceted projects simultaneously, while responding to multiple priorities. Being adaptable is required, as interns must be able to work under pressure to meet tight deadlines and goals; be a self-starter and self-disciplined, but also able to take direction and to fully start and follow through to completion of tasks. You must enjoy working with a variety of people, from internal staff and managers to current and potential readers and advertisers.
Experience working with Excel and Outlook is helpful but not required.
Interns will:
- Learn the day-to-day tasks required to manage customer and business relationships.
- Assist with the planning, organization, and execution of events.
- Assist the ad sales team with production tasks.
- Provide friendly and professional customer service.
- Perform daily administrative tasks required for subscriber maintenance.
- Create and manage social media posts for promotional purposes as directed by the General Manager.
- Act as a customer service representative and provide support for subscriber-related calls and emails.
- Be available for events outside normal business hours.
- Abide by the Cascadia Daily News ethics guidelines and all other company policies and procedures.
This is a paid internship with flexible scheduling, roughly 15-20 hours per week for 10-12 weeks (weekend scheduling likely). A stipend of $2,000 is paid at the end of a successful internship.
To apply, send a brief letter of interest and one-page resume to Cascadia Daily News Business Office at internship@cascadiadaily.com. Applications accepted on a rolling basis.