Freelance writer/researcher Covering the Defense Beat

DefenseIndustryDaily.com, the online reference database dedicated to defense program news and contract updates, is looking for a part-time freelancer to assist with its daily news gathering, as well as contributors to pursue longer-form reporting. Listing posted on August 9, 2011 with the expectation to fill the position by September.

Responsibilities and goals

Each day you will scout online news sites and feeds, social media, and various data repositories such as FedBizOpps to constantly surface up the information that matters to our audience of military procurement officers, lawmakers, and defense industry executives. Our added value resides in filtering and contextualizing news, free of hype and noise, in order to save our readers' time. Though we don't necessarily expect you to break news, you're close enough to the news cycle to be very timely in your coverage. Your judgment and experience let you take PR for what it is.

From the start you will be tasked with the following:

  1. Filing an online news roundup daily in the morning, filling out longer-form coverage to include immediate events. Due to need for timeliness, East Coast (VA/DC preferred) is preferred.
  2. Sharing relevant source links on our intranet for these programs of record for which we offer ongoing indepth coverage. In other words, you will help us as a news scout of sorts.

Once you are fully up and running on the above, contribution to existing entries, and full-fledged new articles may be added to the mix.

Note: we are also looking for writers to pursue individual stories in longer form.

Competencies, qualities, requirements

  • You have 3+ years of experience as a writer or reporter in daily or weekly publications (daily preferred) and/or as an analyst. You must be already familiar with major defense programs and issues. For instance, you might have worked for a trade newsletter, a newspaper, an investment bank, an analyst firm or a think tank in the past.
  • You have strong numeracy, know how to interpret documents such as GAO reports or SEC filings, and can produce readable, meaningful data tables and charts.
  • Given the above, you probably have graduated from a good college, but we will always favor a driven doer over an impractical Ivy Leaguer. (If you managed to not lose your common sense after an English/Public Policy double major at an Ivy League, good for you: please apply!)
  • You have started establishing connections in the industry and can tap sources by phone/email as well as engage readers via social media monitoring. You are convinced that quality online content aggregation/curation is *not* about copying and pasting.
  • You are comfortable and productive working remotely with a team spread over many locations. You understand that remote work gives you both more freedom and more responsibility. You communicate often and proactively to avoid tunnel effects. You are articulate in verbal and written communications, with proper grammar and spelling. You’re easily reachable by phone, email, and instant messaging.
  • You know how to organize your time and priorities and are comfortable with project management. You pay attention to details and have a good memory, and you hate to drop the ball. You’re well-mannered, have a strong sense of ethics, and good judgment.
  • You crave ongoing learning and improvement. For you "good enough" means "really good." In a work relationship you're looking for high performance, not coddling. (You've been warned, we don't do the latter!)
  • You’re familiar with lightweight content management systems such as Wordpress or ExpressionEngine. You know basic HTML (hyperlinks, bulleted lists, embedded images/videos). You’re open to, and interested in, online innovation such as interactive charting or mapping, and would love to help implement new ways to deliver business news and data. You know how to use, or commit to learning, firehose news collections systems to monitor hundreds of RSS feeds, web pages and social media streams.
  • This position requires you to have a properly setup home office with broadband internet access and a decent computer that you maintain yourself (bluntly: computer idiots need not apply). Ideally this is not your first home office gig.

Compensation

This freelance contracting position is expected to start from around 12 hours per week with the production of fresh content each business day.

Compensation from $1,500/mo up, based on your experience and the level of your availability and involvement. (Per-article rate to be discussed for longer one-off articles.)

To apply

Send your resume as an attached PDF or hyperlink, as well as a cover letter in the body of your email that explains why you apply, and links to sites on which you worked with an explanation of what you did for them, to olivier@watershed-publishing.com. Please put your name in your subject line to help us manage applications.