Food Trends Columnist

Food Columnist, Features

in New York, NY

The Wall Street Journal is seeking a New York-based food columnist on its Weekend &
WSJ. Magazine lifestyle team to deliver trenchant, well-observed columns and coverage on food trends and restaurant scenes; profiles of distinctive and interesting chefs, diners, restaurateurs, food producers or trend-makers; and delectable, charming trend stories and profiles that are one step ahead of the group chat.

The ideal candidate is a high-metabolism feature reporter with a sense of whimsy and a zeal for chasing distinctive, visual and character-driven stories in the food space, as well as the good sourcing and unique eye on the personalities, trends and emerging conversations that are tearing across Instagram and #foodtok. They will know how to interpret those visual ideas in a vivid, writerly manner for a general, national audience, and have a good sense of what stories Wall Street Journal readers will be most drawn to.

They should have a sense of humor, excellent taste and a deep passion for good visual storytelling.

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 food trend or travel stories or chef profiles—for WSJ. Magazine .

• Report, write and fact-check an average of one column per week about a trend, person, dish, news event or conversation in the food, restaurant or beverage world.
• Burst with highly shareable, witty, adrenalized story ideas with clearly understood news value and elegant, writerly execution.
• Bring a deeply seasoned knowledge of key power players and a good roster of sources and contacts to help garner exclusives, identify trends, develop features and work toward access-driven stories we own.
• Easily modulate between surprising, well-reported, detail-driven feature stories as well as whimsical, amusing voice-y essays or interviews. Embody the Weekend and WSJ. Magazine mission to simultaneously inform and entertain.
• Work collaboratively and egolessly with others—both with Weekend editors as well as with our style and culture teams of reporters.
• Uncover angles and ideas no one else is chasing and develop them into engaging reads. Amplify traditional profiles, trends or event stories with humanizing detail and great eye for shareable, well-crafted narrative that show potential for long-form WSJ. Magazine inclusion as features or as 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 8 years experience covering a relevant beat, including essays or columns, reported feature stories, and well-developed enterprise or longer-form features.
• A proven history of finding unexpected takes on the food or restaurant world, as well as an eye for elevated cultural and visually sumptuous stories that appeal to a general audience.
• Great contacts 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 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…