ProPublica is seeking an innovative deputy audience editor to lead a three-person team of social media and search engine optimization specialists focused on increasing the reach, diversity and loyalty of audiences for our journalism. This position reports to the director of audience strategy.

While impact remains the most important metric for our success, building broad reach to become more well-known while also developing deeper relationships with our audiences are paramount strategic goals. You will provide guidance to editors and reporters on audience-first best practices, including story formats and distribution across text, video and audio. This candidate should be comfortable with experimentation and building a test-and-learn culture within the team.

Responsibilities

• Social media
  • Oversee the team responsible for getting ProPublica’s stories on social platforms.
  • Conceive, edit and create auxiliary, social-first content for our investigations (Twitter threads, Instagram posts, among other platforms).
  • Identify new platforms and opportunities for the team to evaluate.
• Editorial process
  • Assign audience editors to stories and monitor publication schedule.
  • Edit and write story headlines and social media copy, and direct the creation of auxiliary onsite content such as search-driven explainers, takeaways and sidebars for our investigations.
  • Monitor and optimize audience’s involvement in the ProPublica story workflow.
  • Serve as a liaison between editorial leadership and the audience team to identify and communicate priorities.
• Management and metrics
  • Manage a team of general and specialist audience editors to achieve the audience team’s goals on reach, engagement and loyalty.
  • Set clear and measurable targets for audience development initiatives, such as increases in website traffic, social media followers and engagement metrics, and adjust strategies to ensure goals are met.
  • Communicate regularly with stakeholders on progress towards goals and provide regular reports and updates.
  • Celebrate successes and achievements and use them as opportunities to learn and improve.
  • Stay up-to-date on industry trends and best practices in digital publishing and audience development.

Experience

• 5-7 years of writing, editing or audience development experience preferred, ideally in a newsroom.
• Strong news judgment, writing and editing skills, especially in headline writing across different platforms and content such as search engines, Twitter threads and explainers.
• Experience leading and managing people to achieve organization and department specific goals.
• A record of growing and engaging audiences and improving loyalty of those audiences over time.
• Strong understanding of social media platforms and their algorithms.
• Ability to navigate a changing environment for audience distribution and guide an organization by planning strategically and realistically.
• Knowledge of best practices with search engine optimization.
• Experience using data to inform decisions on content strategy across a range of subjects and platforms.
• Mentoring and guiding early career journalists, especially identifying creative approaches for career growth in a changing industry.

This job is full time and includes benefits and may require occasional travel. ProPublica is based in New York, but we’re open to remote candidates if the fit is right. Applicants must be eligible to work in the U.S.

The expected salary range for this position is $110,000 to $130,000.

This is a good faith estimate of what we expect to pay for this position. The final salary figure will take into account a person’s experience, accomplishment and location. ProPublica is committed to paying its staff equitably, and these ranges should not be considered career salary limits or caps.

If all of this sounds exciting to you, you can apply using this form.

We know there are great candidates who may not fit into what we’ve described above or who have important skills we haven’t thought of. If that’s you, don’t hesitate to apply and tell us about yourself.

We are dedicated to improving our newsroom, in part by better reflecting the people we cover. (Here is a breakdown of our staff.) We are committed to diversity and building an inclusive environment for people of all backgrounds and ages. And we are taking steps to meet that commitment. We especially encourage members of traditionally underrepresented communities to apply, including women, people of color, LGBTQ people and people with disabilities. We are an equal opportunity employer and prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind. All employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, age or any other status protected under applicable law.

We will begin reviewing applications as we receive them, but we will continue to consider candidates as long as the posting remains live on our site.

Questions? Send an email to [email protected].

No phone calls, please.

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