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Political reporter skills for your resume and career
Updated January 8, 2025
1 min read
Quoted experts
Dr. Keith Herndon Ph.D.,
Dr. Christina Fisanick
Below we've compiled a list of the most critical political reporter skills. We ranked the top skills for political reporters based on the percentage of resumes they appeared on. For example, 16.8% of political reporter resumes contained facebook as a skill. Continue reading to find out what skills a political reporter needs to be successful in the workplace.
15 political reporter skills for your resume and career
1. Facebook
Here's how political reporters use facebook:
- Maintained social networking campaigns and Facebook ads, calculating viewing statistics by voters for analysis
- Improved public image and community relations by integrating Facebook and additional social media sites.
2. News Stories
News Story is a term that is quite self-explanatory as it refers to all the information that is recorded either in writing or as an interview and aims to inform the public about any particular matter, event, idea or mishap. A news story can be very short as well lengthy depending on the type and quantity of content and consist of relevant facts and figures.
Here's how political reporters use news stories:
- Research, plan, develop, write, and publish news stories for an online news organization.
- Write news stories for publication and create a network of sources and information for news purposes.
3. State Politics
Here's how political reporters use state politics:
- Covered state politics and Kentucky General assembly/state government.
- Covered crime, car accidents, county and state politics, agriculture news and Manchester University events.
4. State Government
Here's how political reporters use state government:
- Covered state government -Wrote scripts, recorded audio tracks, reported live -Researched & compiled information and maintained contacts for stories
- Cover news at the State Capitol three days a week - reporting on state government activities.
5. Presidential Election
Here's how political reporters use presidential election:
- Reported on the 2016 Presidential Election Covered the Democratic Party events in South Florida, including speeches by Pres.
- Gathered recent polling information for field program use regarding 2016 presidential election.
6. Political News
Here's how political reporters use political news:
- Covered national political news events and elections.
- Reported on political news and issues relevant to Lycoming County.
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Here's how political reporters use newspapers:
- Researched and wrote monthly news analysis for Mississippi newspapers.
- Campaign finance reporter for the San Antonio Express-News in the Hearst Newspapers Austin Bureau, which also includes the Houston Chronicle.
8. News Articles
Here's how political reporters use news articles:
- Conducted interviews for current news articles - Handled investigative reporting and breaking news - Prepared extensive research
- Collaborated with Japanese reporters on news articles in Japanese about the Security Council and General Assembly.
9. Policy Issues
Policy issues are key issues that influence the economic, social, and political life of a place where conflicts arise over the direction of government policy. Often the policy issues are general, dealing with broad approaches to problems, such as whether the federal government should increase spending on national defense or whether social security should be privatized in some fashion.
Here's how political reporters use policy issues:
- Distilled dense public policy issues and legislative process for public consumption, while establishing long- term relationships with sources.
- Covered the California state Assembly, reporting on a wide range of policy issues with national implications.
10. Investigative Journalism
Here's how political reporters use investigative journalism:
- Developed new ratings period focus on long-form investigative journalism, leading to consistent first place ranking among nightly newscasts in market.
- Researched and reported on community education issues prominent in South LA while learning about investigative journalism techniques
11. Campaign Finance
Here's how political reporters use campaign finance:
- Analyzed campaign finance data using Excel and Access for political, business and gambling stories.
- Covered municipal elections and campaign finance in Carrboro and Chapel Hill.
12. Multimedia Content
Here's how political reporters use multimedia content:
- Provided photos, live tweeted and provided multimedia content for the station website.
13. Political Stories
Here's how political reporters use political stories:
- Covered business and political stories in the area.
14. Local Government
Here's how political reporters use local government:
- Covered transportation, local government, business and entertainment news that effected residents of Livingston County.
- Produced lead weekday nightly reports and political reports on local government and from Indiana Statehouse.
15. Election Coverage
Here's how political reporters use election coverage:
- General assignment covering the town of Dedham - police, city hall, human interest, election coverage.
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What skills help Political Reporters find jobs?
Tell us what job you are looking for, we’ll show you what skills employers want.
What political reporter skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?
Dr. Keith Herndon Ph.D.
Professor of Practice and Executive Director of the Cox Institute for Journalism Innovation, Management and Leadership., University of Georgia
Artificial intelligence, or AI, is becoming more relevant to journalism jobs, and in the next few years it will become an essential tool for journalists if it already isn't one. Journalists will increasingly use AI as they prepare interview guides, mine data, search for sources, and edit audio or video stories. Journalists have long been comfortable interviewing human subjects. Journalists now must become comfortable with prompt engineering, which is essentially interviewing the computer. But while AI can help journalists become more productive, journalists must also recognize the ethical challenges that come with using these tools and learn to become more transparent with their audiences about how and why AI tools are deployed in a newsroom.
What type of skills will young political reporters need?
Dr. Christina Fisanick
Associate Professor of English, California University of Pennsylvania
College graduates in 2021 and beyond, need all of the skills that English programs have to offer: critical thinking, effective communication, creativity, and flexibility. New hires need to be able to adapt to workplace changes quickly and with aplomb, which requires critical thinking and problem solving and the ability to communicate those solutions to a diverse audience clearly and effectively. Those skills are refined and practiced regularly in English programs.
What soft skills should all political reporters possess?
Kate Cunningham
Multimedia communication instructor, University of New Mexico
Good journalists use a variety of soft skills, but I think curiosity is chief among them. You've got to be curious about the world around you to produce a variety of stories. It's not just writing about the things that are happening in your community. It's asking why those things are happening. Are they trends or just one-time things? If a new law is passed to crack down on a certain crime, for example, it's figuring out if that crime was frequently happening or if there is another reason behind the move.
Along with curiosity about your community, interest in continuing to learn about journalism itself is important. Journalists can't cover City Hall, for example, how they might have 20 years ago, and it will be different in another five years. Being open-minded and realizing that storytelling itself has changed -- and will change -- is paramount.
Collaboration with other people in the newsroom is another soft skill to have. By that, I mean not just working with other reporters but visual journalists or the graphics team. Coincidentally, the more departments you work with, the better your story might be presented to and understood by people in your audience.
Other soft skills that are important include critical thinking and observation.
Along with curiosity about your community, interest in continuing to learn about journalism itself is important. Journalists can't cover City Hall, for example, how they might have 20 years ago, and it will be different in another five years. Being open-minded and realizing that storytelling itself has changed -- and will change -- is paramount.
Collaboration with other people in the newsroom is another soft skill to have. By that, I mean not just working with other reporters but visual journalists or the graphics team. Coincidentally, the more departments you work with, the better your story might be presented to and understood by people in your audience.
Other soft skills that are important include critical thinking and observation.
Do you want to know more?
Read more about what experts have to say about political reporterList of political reporter skills to add to your resume
The most important skills for a political reporter resume and required skills for a political reporter to have include:
- News Stories
- State Politics
- State Government
- Presidential Election
- Political News
- Newspapers
- News Articles
- Policy Issues
- Investigative Journalism
- Campaign Finance
- Multimedia Content
- Political Stories
- Local Government
- Election Coverage
- Press Conferences
- News Reports
- Caucus
- Local Politics
- NPR
- Feature Stories
- Writing Articles
- State Legislature
- City Government
Updated January 8, 2025
Updated January 8, 2025