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Staff Reporter — The Examination
Fearless accountability journalism on the global health beat
The Examination is a start-up nonprofit newsroom telling vital stories on the global public health beat. Our reporting illuminates the ways corporate practices and profit-seeking contribute to preventable health crises, and elevates the voices of marginalized communities most harmed.
Launching later this year, we strive to produce fact-driven journalism that demands change, and saves lives. Our beats include tobacco, industrialized food, and polluting industries, which we will cover in partnership with collaborating journalists around the world.
Job summary
We are looking for an enterprising journalist to lead beat reporting on two key areas of coverage: big tobacco and industrialized food. This reporter will be closely attuned to the business, regulatory and scientific landscape of these global industries, identifying important news stories and tracking international developments.
This reporter will seek to understand how the tobacco and food industries operate across borders and in regions where they are subject to less oversight and scrutiny than in Western countries. This journalist will regularly produce original reporting, explainers, features, profiles, interviews and other pieces to keep our newsroom and readers informed of key events, trends, case studies and developments on these beats.
We seek a reporter who can engage with readers about these fascinating and evolving beats in a more regular and casual way, and would like to hear your ideas about how best to do so. Options might include a weekly newsletter, shorter pieces for The Examination’s website or regular social media postings.
Qualifications
What matters most is previous experience covering a beat from an accountability perspective. A background in business reporting, covering public health threats, food safety, or industry-related policy and politics is desired. Comfort with science reporting or the ability to mine academic research for leads and story ideas is a plus.
The ideal candidate will have ideas about how to sustain coverage over time and across borders. Please make clear in a cover letter how your past reporting has prepared you for this beat, and how you’d go about leading our newsroom’s coverage of it.
A global outlook is a necessity, as is an openness to collaboration.
Pay and benefits
The estimated salary range for this position is $60,000 — $80,000. The final figure will take into account experience, achievements and location.
The Examination is a fully remote newsroom with excellent health and retirement benefits, a generous vacation and paid leave policy and a commitment to invest in the careers of the journalists on our staff.
We are an equal opportunity employer and have zero tolerance for discrimination or harassment of any kind. All employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age or any other status protected under applicable law.
People of color, people with disabilities, immigrants, LGBTQ+ people and those with experiences in the communities we cover are strongly encouraged to apply.
This job is envisioned as a United States-based position, but if you live elsewhere in the world and feel you are otherwise well-qualified, we welcome you to apply. Please note that the terms of engagement may change depending on the country of residence.
How to apply
Please email work@theexamination.org with your resumé and 3–5 clips of your best work, with a note telling us more about your work on these stories. You might describe how they were first conceived, reporting and writing challenges involved, any impact, etc. Don’t be shy: Your previous work is the most important part of your application.
Please also share your ideas for how you’d tackle the tobacco and food industry beats in a newsroom dedicated to covering global health from an accountability perspective, and how that approach would fit into the mission of The Examination (see below). At least one brief story idea should be part of the application.
Why we are covering the tobacco and food industries
Tobacco use contributes to 8 million deaths globally each year — more than have died in three years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Tobacco causes breathing-related illnesses in many more people. According to the World Health Organization, more than 80% of the 1.3 billion tobacco users worldwide live in low and middle-income countries, where tobacco-related illness and death devastate families and contribute to poverty.
Food products loaded with sweeteners have fueled diabetes and obesity epidemics. Following the same playbook as big tobacco, the food industry has sought to downplay the health risks of sugar-laden and highly processed foods. Beyond these emerging threats, more than 200 diseases are caused by food-borne pathogens, many of which result from unsafe production and storage.
Reporting that makes a difference
The Examination was founded with the understanding that the people of the world do not experience health crises equally, with tens of millions of preventable deaths and illnesses disproportionately concentrated in marginalized communities that can least bear the cost. Our reporting seeks to define, describe and even begin to close this inequity gap, exposing those most responsible — and elevating the voices of those most harmed.
Industries with direct roles in damaging the health of communities will be the primary focus at the outset. The Examination will also explore the ways these entities manipulate rules and regulations to their benefit, market their products and whitewash the harms they cause.
Why we exist: health inequity on a global scale
People in poor communities die younger than those who live in more prosperous ones. They are more likely to drink tainted water, breathe dirty air and live on poisoned land. They are more vulnerable to diseases caused by polluting industries, from plastics to coal to big agriculture. They are more likely to subsist on high-sugar, low-nutrition diets; and they are more likely to be a target of marketing campaigns touting dangerous products.
The toll of this health inequity crisis, in human terms, is immense. Millions die each year from preventable diseases; vast numbers more suffer short and long-term health damage, from cancer to asthma, emphysema, diabetes and other debilitating maladies. Sicknesses linger for years, even decades, weakening families and bankrupting household budgets. At the national level, trillions of dollars that could fund roads or education instead pay for environmental cleanup or caring for the ill.
There is a critical lack of reporting that addresses these crises. Our journalism seeks to fill the information and accountability gap.
Who we are
The Examination will be led by experienced journalists who have seen firsthand the power of investigative reporting to right wrongs and change lives.
We are fully remote, but also aware of the challenges that face a distributed news team. The team will meet in person as often as is feasible and seek to find other ways to build relationships and foster a positive workplace culture.
We need help to meet our ambitious goals and are hiring for positions across our growing virtual newsroom. See all job openings at The Examination here.
