DC Style Reporter

Style & Culture Reporter, Weekend

in Washington, D.C.

Job Description:

The Wall Street Journal is seeking a Washington, D.C.

-based culture reporter on its Weekend & WSJ. Magazine team to deliver trenchant, well-observed social coverage of D.C.’s power classes, reporting lively and prescient news‑features and delectable trend stories and profiles that are one step ahead of the group chat.

From a crop of new membership clubs to major changes at its arts institutions, Washington’s social and court‑theatrical corridors play host to the city’s confluence of politics, power and influence. A self‑starting reporter will go inside this nexus of coverage opportunities, helping generate features on cultural Washington’s colorful scenes, official and unofficial social events, and the unlikely settings where off‑the‑clock influence happens.

Working from our award‑winning D.C. bureau, the ideal candidate is a high‑metabolism feature reporter with both a zeal for chasing distinctive, character‑driven enterprise on the biggest gatherings and figures of social Washington, as well as the sourcing and unique, at‑times whimsical eye for the personalities and forces shaping the city’s culture. They will resist “inside the Beltway” insularity and help interpret ideas in a vivid, culture‑story manner for a general, national audience.

The Journal’s Weekend teams blend deep reporting, sharp wit and good taste to create compulsively readable quick‑turn stories, timely analysis pieces and enterprise features on the subjects of lifestyle, entertainment, culture and ideas. Stories from this team offer a lively lens on the zeitgeist, drawing connections between events and trends in the culture to form original, big‑picture theses about the present moment.

Reporters on the team are also expected to pitch and write long‑lead stories—think exclusive sit‑down interviews and juicy narrative storytelling—for WSJ. Magazine.

• Report, write and fact‑check an average of three stories each month about the cultural or social side of political Washington.
• Burst with highly shareable, witty, adrenalised story ideas with clearly understood news value and elegant, writerly execution.
• Bring a well‑developed roster of sources and knowledge of key figures and contacts to help garner scoops, identify trends, develop features and work toward access‑driven profiles and sitdowns.
• Easily modulate between tough, surprising, detail‑driven enterprise stories as well as whimsical, frisky features that mine for joy and humor. Embody the Weekend and WSJ. Magazine mission to simultaneously inform and entertain.
• Work collaboratively and egolessly with others—with fellow senior feature storytellers, with our enterprise and politics teams, and with our D.C. bureau and its leadership.
• Help uncover distinctive features no one else is chasing and develop them into juicy, engaging reads. Amplify traditional profiles, trends or event stories with humanising detail and great eye for shareable, well‑crafted narrative that show potential for Weekend cover stories.
• Embrace audience data, learning or continuing to fuse metrics with great taste and imaginative ideas.
• Ensure the voice, tone and standards of The Wall Street Journal are consistently met; that stories are accurate, fair, objective and of impeccable quality. Scrupulously uphold newsroom policies and procedures around ethics and conduct.

• Unputdownable clips and exceptional writing and reporting skills.
• 4 to 9 years experience covering a relevant beat, including news, reported feature stories, and well‑developed enterprise or longer‑form feature storytelling.
• A proven history of finding unexpected takes on fast‑moving news events, as well as an eye for cultural and zeitgeist‑y stories that appeal to a general audience.
• Great sources and a dogged, indefatigable sense of how to make stories happen.
• A sense of humor, including a demonstrated ability to find clever, intelligent ways into stories that are being widely covered.
• A meticulous approach to getting facts and details exactly right, knowing how to avoid errors and bulletproof high‑profile, consequential stories with a close attention to detail.
• A sharp…