News Assistant
A first newsroom job: research, transcripts, documents, and the unglamorous work that lets correspondents file.
- Location
- San Francisco, California
- Department
- Editorial
- Type
- Full-time. On-site, four days a week.
- Pay
- $62,000–$78,000
- Posted
The role
InfoHandle correspondents cover their own desks. They still need someone in San Francisco who can pull a filing, transcribe a hearing, check a number against the original, and keep a running log of what is promised for tomorrow’s list. This is not a writer’s seat with a different title. It is the job that teaches how a daily publication actually runs.
What you will do
- Build research packets for correspondents and editors: original documents, prior InfoHandle coverage, and what other desks have already reported.
- Transcribe interviews, hearings, and earnings calls; mark the timestamps editors will actually use.
- Maintain the corrections inbox with the masthead: log incoming notes, pull the published line, and track what was changed.
- Keep the morning list accurate—slugs, expected length, who is on call for breaking.
- Do first-pass checks on names, titles, figures, and URLs before copy moves.
- Cover the newsroom phone and visitor log when the coordinator is out.
What you bring
- A demonstrated interest in journalism: campus paper, internship, or equivalent work with clips or a portfolio of research.
- Comfort with public records, PDFs, spreadsheets, and reading a story to the bottom before you summarize it.
- Clear written English and the patience to ask when something is unclear.
- Ability to work Pacific hours in the San Francisco newsroom, Monday through Thursday, with Friday remote unless you are on the breaking rotation.
- Authorization to work in the United States. We cannot sponsor a visa for this role.
Helpful, not required
- A second language used in California reporting, especially Spanish or Chinese.
- Experience with court records, FOIA/CPRA requests, or legislative bill tracking.
Pay and benefits
California requires a pay range on this posting. For this role in San Francisco, base pay is $62,000–$78,000 a year. The offer depends on experience and the scope of the work.
Full-time roles also include:
- Medical, dental, and vision coverage, with InfoHandle covering the majority of the employee premium
- A 401(k) with a 3% match after 90 days
- Commuter benefits for Muni, BART, Caltrain, and ferry
- Fifteen days of paid time off in the first year, plus paid California holidays and a newsroom shutdown between Christmas and New Year’s
- Paid parental leave
- A $1,000 annual professional-development stipend (conferences, language study, or a reporting trip your editor signs off on)
How to apply
Send a résumé, a one-page letter, and one piece of work (a story, a research memo, or a well-sourced student project) to jobs@infohandle.net with the subject line “News Assistant.”
In the letter, tell us about a time you had to go back to a source document because the summary was wrong.
Write to jobs@infohandle.net. Please do not call the newsroom about an application.