Visual Journalist

About Lookout Local

Lookout Eugene-Springfield’s mission is to provide fair, accurate, and non-partisan news, focusing on the role of business in shaping a community through taxes and jobs. We are committed to reviving local journalism and engaging with the community to reflect their needs and interests. Lookout Eugene-Springfield now approaches its first anniversary, having already achieved great traction -- audience, membership, advertising, and community trust -- It is part of Lookout Local, a now fast-growing, next-generation West Coast-based local news network. Lookout Santa Cruz won the 2024 Pulitzer for Breaking News, and Lookout's fiercely mission-driven, business-driven model is winning wide national notice. Check out our network page: https://lookout.co/network.

Our workplaces are in-person, in-community, collaborative and collegial. We are building a diverse, highly skilled and mission-driven group of journalists, community builders and business people intent on maintaining our culture of learning, growth and community service.

About the role

Lookout Eugene-Springfield has an opening for a community-focused photojournalist with sports proficiency and experience shooting and editing social video to join our outstanding collegial team.

We need a visual storyteller who goes beyond taking images to accompany stories and understands that a photojournalist creates images that expand our correspondents’ storytelling.

Lookout staff is engaged in the community both through the work we do as well as by participating in tabling at community events, school visits and Lookout Listens sessions with members.

The University of Oregon is a significant part of our coverage, so a demonstrated proficiency in sports photography is a must for the ideal candidate.

At Lookout, we believe that photojournalism is not just complementary and our journalist should have a genuine curiosity and willingness to cover assignments solo, delivering compelling visuals, informative cutlines and written reports. Check out the best of our first year’s impact work and photojournalism, here.

The demands of the position include fast-paced daily journalism and long-term storytelling. There is a great deal of independence and all Lookout journalists are expected to be expert planners, teammates and communicators.

Lookout Eugene-Springfield is home to a cyclorama photo studio, which should be a playground for our photojournalist and our ideal candidate will have ideas for how to use this space to create visuals that engage our community.

Our ideal photojournalist has a drone license and ideas for integrating aerial photography into our regular coverage.

Mentoring is a key part of this position, and the photojournalist will work with correspondents on best practices in visual storytelling as well as with a summer photography intern.

Responsibilities

• Document breaking news, features, sports, business, arts and community events through still and video journalism
• Produce social-first video content for platforms including Instagram and YouTube
• Capture and edit short-form video, interviews, reels and behind-the-scenes content
• Develop strong relationships within the community to identify visual storytelling opportunities
• Cover high school and Division I college sports with an emphasis on action photography and storytelling
• Work collaboratively with correspondents and editors to develop multimedia coverage plans
• Quickly edit and transmit photos and video on deadline
• Develop individual enterprise visual projects
• Write accurate captions, gather basic reporting information and contribute to story development
• Help grow audience engagement through compelling visual journalism and active community presence
• Represent the organization professionally at public events and in community settings
• Maintain and organize photo and video archives
• Be an adept problem solver
• The photjournalist position is a full-time, on-site position based in Eugene, Oregon. We pride ourselves on our in-person, in-community presence in daily local news.

Qualifications

• Experience in photojournalism, visual storytelling and multimedia reporting
• Strong photography skills with knowledge of composition, lighting and action photography
• Experience shooting and editing social video content
• Familiarity with Adobe Creative Suite, Photo Mechanic and mobile editing tools
• Ability to work independently and manage multiple assignments on deadline
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills
• Comfortable engaging with community members, public officials, athletes and event organizers
• Understanding of social media trends and audience engagement strategies
• Be flexible: Willingness to work evenings, weekends and non-regular hours as news and events require
• Valid driver’s license and reliable transportation required
• Have complete photojournalist gear, including lenses needed for sports photography and lighting for studio work
• Experience covering sports photography at the high school or collegiate level
• Drone license and aerial photography experience
• Knowledge of AP Style caption writing
• Experience working in a digital-first newsroom
• Familiarity with live social coverage and real-time publishing workflows

About Lookout Eugene-Springfield

In one year, Lookout Eugene-Springfield has become the largest local newsroom in Lane County and is the destination for local news and information for this community. Known for journalism that goes beyond the superficial, Lookout staff always put the community at the center of our coverage.

Lookout is a full-time, in-person newsroom with an office located in downtown Eugene.

If you believe local journalism is built through relationships and visibility in the community, if you are curious, approachable, creative and eager to experiment with new storytelling formats while maintaining strong journalism standards, you could be the right fit for Lookout.

What We Offer:

• Competitive salary and performance-based incentives.
• Full-time benefits include highly competitive medical, dental, and optical benefits, and 401(k) with matching.
• Good PTO allowances
• Stock options in our growing company
• An opportunity to make a significant impact on and contribute to the revival of local journalism.
• A collaborative and mission-driven work environment.

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