Books Reporter

The Wall Street Journal is seeking a reporter on its Features & WSJ. Magazine team to write consumer-facing book and literary-world features, report lively and prescient trend stories, and write delectable, highly shareable feature stories with a focus on authors, books and readership for a general consumer audience.

Modern media is rapidly transforming publishing, including every aspect of how readers engage with books and their authors. The ideal candidate is a high-metabolism feature reporter with both a zeal for chasing distinctive, character-driven angles on the biggest literary and book-world industry stories of the day, as well as an eye for the big personalities and cultural forces shaping the medium, from writers to sellers to #Book Tok crusaders.

The Journal’s Features 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 four stories each month about books, literary trends, authors and the key players in the book world.
• Burst with highly shareable, witty, adrenalized story ideas with clearly understood news value and elegant, thoughtful execution.
• Bring a well-developed roster of industry contacts and knowledge of key figures and sources to help garner scoops, identify trends, and develop features.
• Easily modulate between tough, detail‑driven enterprise stories as well as whimsical, frisky features that mine for joy and humor. Embody the Features and WSJ. Magazine mission to simultaneously inform and entertain.
• Work collaboratively and egolessly with others—both with senior feature storytellers, with our enterprise and business teams, and with our fellow Media bureau focused on the corporate business‑side stories currently reshaping books.
• Uncover stories no one else is chasing and develop them into juicy features and engaging reads. Amplify traditional profiles of authors, fan trends or literary trends with humanizing detail and great eye for shareable, well‑crafted narrative that show potential for long‑form WSJ. Magazine inclusion as features or 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 8 years experience covering a relevant beat, including news, reported feature stories, and well‑developed enterprise or long‑form feature storytelling.
• A proven history of finding unexpected takes on fast‑moving news events, as well as an eye for book‑world stories that appeal to a general audience.
• A sense of humor, including a proven history of finding clever, intelligent ways into stories that are being widely covered.
• A demonstrated meticulous approach to getting facts and details exactly right, minimizing corrections and bulletproofing stories with close attention to detail.
• A sharp sense of how to connect with digital audiences.
• Visual thinking and a vested interest in how your stories will look and present across platforms.
• A collaborative, team‑player attitude, an upbeat outlook and an entrepreneurial spirit as we grow and evolve coverage needs.

You will report to the Bureau Chief of Entertainment & Arts within the Features team. This is a full‑time position based in our New York office.

To apply, please submit a cover letter describing your experience and interest in this job, a detailed resume and five clips with a sentence or two as to what the stories show about…