Reporter - Sports Business and Retail

Job Description

The Portland Business Journal is a hybrid workplace. Reporters are in the Portland, Oregon office on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. 

The Portland Business Journal is hiring a reporter to cover the city’s dynamic sports business and retail sectors, powerhouse contributors to the region’s economy and culture.
On the sports business beat, this reporter will cover industry giants like Nike, Columbia Sportswear, Adidas North America and Keen, as well as the city’s professional sports teams: the Trail Blazers, Timbers and Thorns. Big stories are breaking — new ownership is taking over the Blazers, Portland’s WNBA team, the Fire, tips off in 2026, and the city is making a play for Major League Baseball. This is a fast-moving, competitive, high-profile beat that demands a reporter who thrives on scoops, digs into strategy and understands the business behind the game.
The retail beat is just as compelling. From small businesses fighting rising costs to landlords navigating vacancies and national brands entering and exiting the market, this is a sector full of tension, opportunity and transformation.
The ideal candidate will blend classic reporting chops including source building and relentless curiosity with digital savvy and social media skills. Reporters in our newsroom don’t just deliver transactional news. They break hard news that sometimes sources don’t want brought to light, but they don’t burn bridges. Enterprise reporting and quick-turn daily stories are equally important. Tenacity is a must.

Job Requirements

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Write one to two daily stories
• Write enterprise and longer-form stories
• Own the beat, dictating day-to-day coverage and delivering source-driven exclusives and scoops
• Relentlessly develop sources and manage relationships with high-level executives and other community leaders
• Scoop competitors on significant stories, not only telling readers what happened, but why and how
• Help as needed with setup, tear down and production at Portland Business Journal events

SKILLS:

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent work experience
• Ability to work under daily deadline pressure
• Ability to report and write long-form, enterprise stories
• Ability to break news
• Ability to develop deep source networks
• Ability to use data to drive reporting and uncover news
• Ability to use public documents to drive reporting and uncover news
• Ability to use social media to inform reporting, find sources and drive conversations
• Strong analytical and investigative skills
• Competitive, collaborative, curious
• Multimedia skills, including video and photography are helpful
• Proficient with MS Office Products
• Proficient with web-based communication platforms (Teams, Zoom, Webex, etc)

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