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About this role:

The Banner is seeking a Food Reporter to join our Arts & Culture team and cover one of the most important ways people experience the Baltimore region, through food.

This is a role for a journalist who is endlessly curious about restaurants, dining trends, neighborhoods, and the people behind them. You should be excited to be the first to hear about a buzzy new restaurant opening, eager to track down hidden gems across the region, and interested in telling the stories behind institutions that have fed generations of Baltimoreans.

Food coverage at The Banner is about much more than what is on the plate. The best candidates will be passionate about uncovering the forces shaping how and where people eat, from development and labor to affordability, regulations, culture, and changing consumer habits.

This reporter will cover dining news and trends throughout Baltimore and the surrounding counties, including Baltimore County, Howard County, and Anne Arundel County. They will play a key role in creating stories readers return to again and again, including restaurant guides, neighborhood dining roundups, trend stories, explainers, profiles, and ambitious narrative projects that help readers better understand their communities through food.

What you'll cover:

In this role, you will help make The Banner an essential destination for food, restaurant, and dining coverage across the Baltimore region. Your work may include:

Covering restaurant openings, closings, trends, and developments across Baltimore and surrounding counties.
Finding and reporting on hidden gems, neighborhood favorites, long-standing institutions, and new dining experiences.
Writing service journalism that helps readers decide where to eat, what to try, and what is changing in the local food scene.
Reporting on the business, culture, labor, development, politics, and community issues connected to food.
Building recurring guides, rankings, seasonal dining coverage, and reader-focused features that drive engagement and loyalty.
Developing enterprise and narrative stories that show how food connects to identity, place, history, and community life.

What You'll Do:

Pitch, report, and write a mix of breaking news, enterprise stories, profiles, service journalism, and long-form features about food, restaurants, and dining culture across the Baltimore region.
Be the first to identify and cover major restaurant openings, closings, trends, and developments shaping the local food scene.
Produce useful, reader-focused journalism that helps people discover new restaurants, hidden gems, neighborhood favorites, and memorable dining experiences.
Develop ambitious stories that explore the intersection of food with business, culture, politics, development, labor, affordability, and community life.
Build and maintain a deep source network that includes chefs, restaurateurs, hospitality workers, developers, liquor board members, neighborhood leaders, diners, and other stakeholders.
Contribute to recurring franchises, restaurant guides, rankings, seasonal dining coverage, and other features that readers will rely on regularly.
Cover issues affecting the food industry, including workforce challenges, economic pressures, development projects, regulations, and changing consumer behavior.
Collaborate with editors, photographers, designers, audience staff, and other newsroom partners to create compelling storytelling across platforms.
Represent The Banner in the community through events, public appearances, television and radio interviews, and other audience engagement opportunities.
Use audience data and analytics to identify opportunities for growth and better serve readers.

What You'll Bring:

At least 5 years of journalism experience, preferably covering food, restaurants, dining, culture, business, or a related beat.
Exceptional reporting, interviewing, and writing skills.
A demonstrated ability to generate original story ideas and develop exclusive reporting.
Strong news judgment and the ability to balance daily coverage with longer-term enterprise work.
A strong interest in food, dining culture, restaurants, and the hospitality industry, paired with a commitment to rigorous journalism.
The ability to explain complex issues clearly, accurately, and engagingly.
Strong source-building skills and the ability to develop trust with people across different communities and industries.
Experience using social media and other digital tools to report stories, identify trends, and connect with audiences.
Comfort working in a fast-paced, deadline-driven newsroom environment.
Strong collaboration and communication skills.
Willingness to work evenings and weekends as news and events require.
Commitment to journalistic ethics, accuracy, fairness, and serving the public interest.

Note: Please provide clips that supports your work.

Salary Range: $70,000 - $85,000. Individual pay may vary from the target range and is determined by several factors, including experience, internal pay equity, and other relevant business considerations. This role is not eligible for corporate bonus opportunity. We constantly review all teammate pay to ensure a great compensation package that is fair and equitable across the board.

Our amazing benefits include:

Flexible Paid Time Off
Retirement savings - 401K plan offered through Human Interest, with a company match
Student Loan Debt Repayment Assistance for qualified employees
Full health benefits - medical, dental, vision, prescription, FSA/HSA., and coverage for family/dependents
Sick Leave eligible for rollover 
Commuter Benefits
11 Paid National Holidays
Employee Assistance Program
Generous Parental Leave
Company paid access to a wellness platform to support mental, financial and physical wellbeing

Our Core Values:

Do what's right. Honesty, morality, respect and the mission guide our actions and decisions. By doing the right thing, we inspire others to believe.
Work together. We collaborate to create something special. Together we challenge assumptions, trust each other, take risks, and foster transparent and direct communication.
Listen to be heard. Our stories are trustworthy. They are inspired by and created for our readers. Their story is our story. Communities are at the center of our journalism, and everything we do.
Deliver impactful results. Acting as one accountable team and driven by an entrepreneurial spirit, we deliver bold and innovative results. We act fast, execute and learn. We celebrate great outcomes.
Be inclusive. We celebrate the uniqueness of each individual and act by curating a culture that leverages diverse perspectives as the key to fulfilling our mission. The Banner is for all of us.

The Venetoulis Institute embraces diversity and inclusion, and we are wholeheartedly committed to being proactive in inspiring a culture of inclusion across our organization. We are dedicated to establishing an organization that reflects the fundamental respect for different ways of working and living, and we assure every employee the opportunity to reach their full potential.

We are dedicated to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities throughout the recruitment process. If you require accommodation due to a disability to participate in the application process, please contact careers@thebanner.com to request accommodation. Reasonable accommodations may include, but are not limited to, adjustments in the application process, modifications or assistance regarding job interviews, and accommodations to enable access to our facilities. We appreciate the value that individuals with disabilities bring to our workforce and encourage applicants with disabilities to disclose their needs for accommodation to facilitate a smooth and inclusive recruitment experience.

The Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism jobs

Food Reporter