News Reporter - Lorain County

Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer are seeking a News Reporter to cover Lorain County, Ohio. Your job will be almost exclusively to gather information, rather than write. This frees you to report: to develop sources, dig into records and explore the beat, while a rewrite specialist turns your findings into full stories using artificial intelligence.

As the Lorain County Reporter, you'll explore one of Northeast Ohio's fastest-growing and most varied counties — a place that runs from soybean fields and township halls to the industrial waterfront of Lorain, the county seat in Elyria, the college town of Oberlin and the booming suburbs of Avon, Avon Lake and North Ridgeville. It's roughly 500 square miles and 315,000 people, and almost every story here is about change: who's arriving, what's being built, what's closing and who gets a say.

The reporter in this role owns county-wide accountability coverage. That includes county commissioners, the courts and the sheriff's office; city councils, school boards and zoning meetings; and breaking news as it happens.

You'll file multiple posts a day, working with our AI rewrite desk. Nearly all your stories will be turned into text by the rewrite desk, while you spend your time reporting: gathering information, talking to sources, meeting people in the community and delving into reporting. Our rewrite specialist uses artificial intelligence as a tool to craft the stories for cleveland.com.

Lorain stories are some of our most compelling, like these examples show:

Lorain County’s jail is crumbling and everyone inside is paying the price

https://www.cleveland.com/news/2026/06/lorain-countys-jail-is-crumbling-and-everyone-inside-is-paying-the-price.html

Communities across Lorain County consider how to handle data centers, industrial growth

https://www.cleveland.com/lorain-county/2026/03/communities-across-lorain-county-consider-how-to-handle-data-centers-industrial-growth.html

Bursting at the seams: North Ridgeville High School juggles 500 more students than building can handle

https://www.cleveland.com/news/2025/04/bursting-at-the-seams-north-ridgeville-high-school-juggles-500-more-students-than-building-can-handle.html

The base salary range is $55,000 - $65,000 per year.

Qualifications

• A degree in journalism, communications or a related field, or equivalent education and experience.
• At least 3 years of professional journalism experience with a proven ability in reporting and writing.
• Collaborative instincts and excellent communication skills
• Curiosity, adaptability and comfort with experimentation and innovation, including with AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or newsroom-specific applications).
• This job requires reliable transportation to meet with sources or cover events.