Freelance Community Journalist Role - no qualifications needed
Contract Type: Freelance assignment paying £2,000, plus relevant pre-agreed food & travel costs.
Location: Remote, although you may need to travel to conduct interviews as part of the project.
About Us: Economy (www.ecnmy.org) is a charity whose mission is to support people – particularly those furthest from power - to shape the economy to achieve what matters to them.
About the Role:
As part of our work on how poorly-understood parts of the economy can affect everyday lives in profound ways, we’re looking for someone to create a feature series showcasing the human and economic impacts of auditing failures such as the collapse of Carillon. We are envisioning this taking the form of roughly 4x 750-word pieces, although we are open to other ideas and approaches.
You will be responsible for sourcing and conducting interviews with some of the people who were impacted (e.g. a former employee, a small business owner who lost a contract), and then writing up their stories into accessible and engaging case studies. It’s important that this process is done in a way that feels empowering and not exploitative to the interviewees.
You will be supported in this approach and the work generally by Economy’s editorial team and do not need to already know lots about economics, accounting or auditing.
- Engaging and accessible writing style
- Good people/interviewing skills
- Ability to engage with - and interest in learning about - technical and sometimes complex subjects.
- An interest in investigating and writing about the impact of policies on individuals and communities
- A strong interest in challenging exploitative and extractive practices when finding and working with sources for stories
You do not need to have any specific educational qualification or any specific expertise in finance or economics.
We are particularly interested in hearing from people from communities underrepresented in economics and journalism, including women and non-binary people, people of colour, disabled people, people from working class backgrounds and people based outside of London.
To Apply: Please email us at careers@ecnmy.org with a short project pitch (no longer than one side of A4) explaining your experience and how you would approach the project, including an estimated timeline. Please also include two samples of your previous work.
Application Deadline: 8th November 2021.
Next Steps: Shortlisted applicants will be contacted by Economy’s editorial staff for a 10-15 minute call to discuss how they would approach the work by 15th November 2021.
Accessibility and extra support: You might have accessibility needs or other reasons why you need additional support to complete this project. We will aim to provide any additional support and/or make reasonable adjustments to the process. You can contact us by email (careers@ecnmy.org) if you want to discuss adjustments for applying to or undertaking this project.
Accessibility and extra support: You might have accessibility needs or other reasons why you need additional support to complete this project. We will aim to provide any additional support and/or make reasonable adjustments to the process. You can contact us by email (careers@ecnmy.org) if you want to discuss adjustments for applying to or undertaking this project.
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Our news and entertainment platform (ecnmy.org) is modelling a new way to report on economic news. We work with community contributors from across the UK to co-produce fresh stories about the economy and our experiences of it - shaking up who has a public voice on the economy.
As we grow our platform we are looking to commission and work with freelance journalists and video producers who have one or more of the following experiences, skills and interests:
- Experience communicating technical subjects in an engaging and accessible way to non-specialist audiences
- Experience investigating and writing about the impact of policies on individuals and community
- An interest in challenging exploitative and extractive practices when finding and working with sources for stories
- Experience of co-producing content and stories with marginalised communities
- High quality, supportive and accessible writing / content production style
Specific experience or education in economics is not required. We cover a wide range of issues and how they relate to the economy and our everyday lives, including housing, food, healthcare, money, jobs, education, art and culture, sports, entertainment, the environment and more.
Join this mailing list to receive exclusive paid opportunities to write and create content for us. This might include:
- Working with our existing community co-producers to tell their stories
- Recruiting and working with community co-producers to tell stories on specific issues
- Writing new articles on recent economic stories written in a way that breaks down the key issues and connects them to people’s everyday lives
- Producing content for specific projects we are working on
