Live journalism is central to our mission at Semafor. Our goal is to foster dialogue, produce compelling journalism, create newsmaking moments, and provide our audiences with a world-class live experience through our events. Since our launch, we have built an innovative live journalism platform that includes major news-breaking summits, in depth interview series, and insightful roundtable events. We are now rapidly expanding our live journalism business.
This is an exciting opportunity for someone with high-level editing skills and a passion for live events. At Semafor we are focused on keeping extremely high standards of intelligence and quality in our live journalism, and this role is primarily focused on live journalism in Washington and around the world — but also includes editing ambitious business and technology coverage.
As Deputy Editor across our Live Journalism business, you will work closely with Semafor’s editorial and live journalism teams to integrate your live event contributions with our broader editorial strategy. The ideal candidate will have a deep understanding of how Washington policy affects business and technology, as well as a comfort level editing stories about finance and technology. And the editor in this role will ideally have senior contacts in the corporate world and in government who can contribute to our events, which have featured global leaders, cabinet secretaries, and CEOs of major corporations.
You will also help edit and produce our agenda-setting newsletters, ensuring they are must reads for decision makers in those sectors. The reporting teams are led by seasoned, thoughtful journalists who deliver sharp insights and break stories on the biggest news happening on their beats.
This job is about 75% focused on live journalism, and 25% focused on traditional editing.
Responsibilities:
- Collaborate with Semafor’s editorial, events, and sales teams to conceive compelling and newsworthy programming on a range of topics from geopolitics to finance, to media, business and tech.
- Partner with our team to continuously innovate our live journalism platform by identifying key issues and topics, developing new ideas and formats, and booking prominent newsmakers.
- Help our sales and events teams design topics that are compelling for sponsors because that are urgent, exciting, newsworthy, and valuable.
- Identify and leverage emerging news and industry trends, editorial angles and stories, open spaces, smart backdrops i.e new legislation and market shifts, and emerging tensions to help us frame our events and enhance their relevance.
- Work to ensure all of our events are urgent, exciting, newsworthy, and valuable.
- Craft compelling narratives to attract underwriters and speakers, highlighting the event’s unique value proposition.
- Advise and help to secure the most compelling speakers and attendees for our events.
- Work with the Events team to come up with news-driven programs.
- Edit event editorial plans and programming to ensure they are editorially relevant.
- Guide and edit the content of the Business and Technology newsletters.
- Help oversee the production of those newsletters.
- Dive in and get your hands dirty with everything from reporting to writing to booking, as needed.
Things We’re Looking For
- 7 or more years of relevant experience in editing, and knowledge of the business and technology sectors, particularly as they intersect with Washington.
- Versatility, curiosity, and a willing to pitch in across disciplines as needed
- A passion for live journalism and an interest in how to bring it to life.
- Strong writing and editing skills that produce stylish and concise prose.
- The confidence to work closely with tough and experienced journalists.
- A collaborative spirit and willingness to work with multiple parts of a growing media organization to help the teams succeed.
- A strong contact book
Salary Range:
The base annual salary for this position at the time of posting will range from $145,000 – $165,000. Individual compensation varies based on job-related factors, including business needs, experience, level of responsibility, and qualifications.
To apply, go here.
