[Hiring] Senior Health Reporter @Daily Maverick

Role Description

Daily Maverick is looking for a Senior Health Reporter to lead our coverage of South Africa's health sector. This is a senior position for someone who can own a beat, build it into essential reading, and tell those stories across whatever format best serves our readers and the story: text, audio, video or visual.

• Coverage areas include:
• State of public hospitals
• Rollout of National Health Insurance
• Private healthcare industry
• Pharmaceutical accountability
• Mental health
• Reproductive rights
• Human stories behind the statistics

Qualifications

• Proven ability to write clearly, accurately and compellingly on deadline
• A strong, demonstrable list of contacts (or the proven ability to build one fast)
• A self-starter with the initiative to identify stories, follow up on tips, and work sources without close supervision
• Solid understanding of South Africa's health sector's public and private systems, key institutions, current policy debates (e.g. NHI), and the major players
• Comfort working across media formats — willingness and ability to shoot, record or collaborate on visual/audio storytelling, not just filing text
• Sound news judgement and a good grasp of what makes a story matter to DM's readers

Requirements

• Prior experience as a health journalist (advantageous, not required)
• Direct experience working within the health sector (clinical, public health, health policy, pharma, NGO)
• Data journalism skills (working with health datasets, visualising trends)
• Existing relationships with health-sector sources in South Africa