Live Blog Reporters (Freelance / Casual) – The Sun (London)

The Sun is the biggest news brand in the UK, publishing hundreds of stories a day and reaching over 170m unique users digitally every month. Our US version of the Sun website is the fastest growing news site in North America. Its exclusives set the news agenda and its campaigns have changed the lives of many. In recent years, The Sun has campaigned for victims of domestic abuse, NHS workers and veterans to name only a few.

The Sun has a mass-market audience and aims to appeal to a diverse audience in the UK, US and beyond.

The role requires a self-motivated, energetic individual who has extensive media experience and is used to operating within a fast-paced news environment. This is an opportunity to work for a famous brand and drive reputation by amplifying positive actions.

Your role: As a Live Blog Reporter at The Sun, you will be responsible for covering a wide range of news topics across the UK, Europe and the United States. You will be an integral part of our news team, providing timely and accurate updates on unfolding events, trending stories, and key developments across various beats. This role demands quick thinking, strong writing skills, and the ability to work collaboratively with editors and other reporters.

Day to day you will: 

  • Produce, update and edit outstanding live blogs across a wide variety of subjects for The Sun Online and The US Sun
  • Update UK and US live blogs with guidance from the Live Coverage Editor on weekday shifts
  • Assume overall responsibility for live blogs on night and weekend shifts – including updating headlines, reselling the story, launching new blogs, and monitoring traffic.
  • Cover topics as diverse as breaking news & politics to live TV shows, major tech launches, showbiz news & the Royal Family.
  • Explore all news angles, headlines and image possibilities to achieve maximum SEO and homepage readership, obsessing over analytics to keep traffic high at all times.
  • Recognising and acting upon any potential legal issues and acting in accordance with the IPSO Code of Conduct
  • Keen attention to detail and meticulous copy and fact-checking
  • Encourage collaboration and support others, actively engaging with people in other teams and departments
  • Willingness to work flexible hours over a seven-day rota pattern

What we’re looking for from you: 

  • Wide knowledge of news, showbiz, current affairs and trends in the UK and US
  • Good understanding and experience of adhering to SEO best practices
  • Unflappable under pressure and delivers work at a consistently high standard
  • Proactive and displays a willingness to take on any task
  • Positive attitude and good team player
  • Takes initiative in order to achieve desired results
  • Self-starter, organised and a good problem-solver, able to eliminate obstacles through creative and adaptive approaches
  • Experience working collaboratively with multidisciplinary teams
  • Can demonstrate an understanding of the The Sun brand, both print and digital

We are News UK: One of the leading media businesses in the UK and Ireland, our newsbrands include The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun, The Sun on Sunday and The TLS. Our national broadcast brands include talkSPORT, Times Radio, talkRADIO and Virgin Radio UK, and we have market-leading local radio stations across Ireland. In 2022 we launched TalkTV, a major new TV channel available to everyone across the UK, delivering a schedule of news, current affairs, entertainment and sport, with Piers Morgan in a primetime evening show. Our world-famous brands provide news, analysis, opinion and entertainment to almost 40 million people each month. Spanning digital and print, audio and video, events and experiences, our brands are home to a plurality of opinion, representing the diverse communities we serve. News UK is wholly owned by News Corp.

 

Life at News: At News UK our people are our heartbeat – they are the driving force behind our brands and we want to enable people to thrive.  Some of us work flexibly, in many different ways. We encourage you to talk to us about the flexibility you would like.  Many of us work in a hybrid way between one of the News UK & Ireland offices and remotely.

We champion diversity and inclusion, we strive to maximise and encourage every individual’s potential and ensure everyone feels valued. We support this through our Diversity Board, D&I  strategy & training, creating more diverse content and our intern and apprenticeship programmes.  We also have 11 employee-led networks.

We want to ensure that everyone we meet has the opportunity to perform to their best when interviewing. Please let us know, at any stage, whether you require any reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, and we will do our best to accommodate.

News UK is an official partner of the Journalism Diversity Fund, founder of the Journalism and Disability Forum, and proud member of the Valuable 500. At News UK, we will continue to promote an inclusive and diverse workplace, to help people with visible and non visible disabilities create careers in media and aim to make our content accessible to all.

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