Cabin Radio is hiring reporters based in Yellowknife, NWT

Cabin Radio is hiring Northwest Territories reporters. Join a trusted, widely read, and innovative multimedia newsroom where your wellbeing and professional development are prioritized.

Location: Yellowknife, Northwest Territories

Contract: Permanent and one-year contracts available

Type of work: Primarily written reporting with opportunities for broadcast work

Salary: $45,000-$60,000 per year

Benefits: Cabin Radio employee health benefits program, 20 days’ paid vacation per year (plus statutory holidays) from commencement of employment, pleasant office sofas, friendly colleagues who often bring you coffee, variety of office dogs

To apply: Send the following to Ollie Williams, head of programming and news, by 11pm MT on Thursday, March 31:

1. Your résumé and a short cover letter outlining what marks you out as a candidate
2. Three work samples (which can involve any platform, e.g. written, audio, video, social, data)
3. Three story pitches you’d like to explore related to the Northwest Territories
4. An indication of your preferred starting date should your application be successful

About Cabin Radio

Founded in 2017, Cabin Radio is owned and operated by five Yellowknife residents. Our owners and a small staff run our independent internet radio station, online newsroom, and Facebook and Instagram channels designed to keep residents of the Northwest Territories informed and entertained.

Our reporting is trusted, precise, robust, fair, and quick. People head to our website first for breaking news reporting they can rely on. Our reporting receives up to a million views each month and is shortlisted for major awards alongside the likes of the CBC and Globe and Mail.

More importantly, our journalism makes a real difference to people’s lives across the Northwest Territories. This job is for someone who wants their reporting to have lasting impact rather than disappear after a day.

We have no parent company, it’s just us. Our reporters are valued members of a small team, which means your wellbeing and professional development are important. You’re not a name in a system, you’re on first-name terms and in daily contact with everyone who runs the show.

About the job

If it happens in the Northwest Territories or affects anyone living here, we report on it. That gives you one of the broadest patches in journalism, covering everything from Indigenous governance and environmental protection to the future of mining, northern music, the territory’s many healthcare challenges, and the evolution of education.

We are currently hiring journalists whose roles will involve general Northwest Territories reporting alongside specific coverage of the NWT’s housing crisis and the territory’s Dehcho, Sahtu and Yellowknife regions.

You’ll be relied on to arrive daily with new ideas, which won’t be hard in an ever-changing territory.

We expect you to uphold our reputation for comprehensive, accurate, innovative, and compelling journalism. We’ll provide the time, support, and equipment for you to get the job done. You bring the determination, drive, professionalism, and passion.

Residents rely on our written reporting so your writing must be sharp, concise, and engaging. We have our own house style to which you’ll be expected to immediately adapt. The right candidate will also have opportunities to lead their own radio and video reporting and share the hosting of our daily newscasts.

Candidates must demonstrate:

• An ability to produce written reporting of an exceptional standard under minimal supervision, proactively identifying relevant news stories to swiftly create thorough and accurate journalism.
• Strong communication skills, including the ability to collaborate, put interviewees at ease, explain complex concepts in simple terms, and act as an ambassador of Cabin Radio to our readers, viewers, and listeners at all times.
• Excellent research skills.
• An understanding of media law.

Candidates should have some or all of:

• Experience in written journalism, including the ability to accurately write breaking news stories in minutes.
• Experience in radio, delivering newscasts, broadcasting live, editing audio, producing podcasts, and conducting interviews for broadcast.
• Experience in video, hosting show segments, shooting and editing video, self-shooting with no separate camera operator, and conducting on-camera live interviews.
• Experience converting in-depth journalism into compelling content on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

Considered beneficial:

• Thorough understanding of the Northwest Territories’ Indigenous communities and the priorities and concerns of northern residents.
• Thorough understanding of the Northwest Territories’ political structures, including consensus government and devolution.
• Skills in photography and/or graphic design.
• An understanding of WordPress.

If you have questions about the role, Cabin Radio, or any aspect of our hiring process, contact us for more information.

About Yellowknife

If you’re from the NWT (we particularly encourage applications from NWT residents), you already know – it’s the best place to live.

Yellowknife, Dettah, and Ndilǫ – on Chief Drygeese territory – are unlike any southern town. There is real character here, both in the communities and the 20,000 or so people who call them home. Quality journalism here thrives because Yellowknife’s welcoming community gets to know its best reporters and comes to rely on them.

Yellowknife residents spend their summers in canoes, hiking, playing ball, exploring, holding festivals, and fishing. They spend their winters skiing, snowmobiling, drinking craft beers, hanging out at holiday markets, building snow castles, and playing a lot of hockey. While northern lives are often lived on the land, no matter what excites you, there’ll be something new about it here.

The wider NWT is not represented by Yellowknife. If you’re new to the territory, we’ll work to give you opportunities to better understand the many communities and peoples that form the Northwest Territories.