The Chief News Editor drives the daily news agenda of The Wall Street Journal. He or she oversees the coverage chiefs, platform editors and editing desk and is ultimately responsible for ensuring that everything we publish fulfills the journalistic mission and upholds the high standards of our journalism.
Tasks/Responsibilities
Content
- Run coverage chiefs, format and platform editors and other senior editors to create a compelling Wall Street Journal publication strategy and drive stories and deadlines.
- The job is expressly focused on producing news, but the Chief News Editor should advise the Executive Editor and Editor in Chief on overall news mission and strategy and the Managing Editor on personnel.
- Set priorities and plans for daily news coverage across all publication platforms and formats.
- Work closely with the Planning Editor to set longer-term publication plans across the newsroom and on the day, implement those plans.
- Must understand how to incorporate audience insight into all strategies.
- Plan and facilitate daily news meetings.
- Coordinate between coverage chiefs and platforms to make sure all content is optimized on all platforms.
- Suggest medium and long-term content ideas to the Planning Editor and Executive Editor
- Manage the relationship and creative tension between the content creation, platform and editing leadership, resolve disputes between different coverage areas, format and platform editors.
- Track performance and adjust priorities and strategy to maximize the impact of WSJ journalism on all platforms.
- Continuously develop and improve the workflows, ways of working and structures to assure audience focus, quality, effectivity and efficiency.
Leadership
- Inspire our journalists to produce their best work on all platforms.
- Contribute by attitude, example and encouragement to a culture of creativity, enthusiasm, motivation, ownership and professionalism.
- Manage, motivate and develop staff to consistently produce high-quality work.
- Set clear objectives for direct reports, cascading effectively down.
- Set agenda and make and articulate clear decisions.
- Set standards for individual and team performance – ongoing and in regular performance reviews.
- Contribute to the shaping and management of staff-development programs.
- Provide strong leadership in difficult situations.
- Identify high-potential members of the team and ensure they are effectively developed.
Key Attributes/Knowledge/Experience
- Deep understanding of the brand values and mission of The Wall Street Journal — digital and print — and how our journalism should be selected and presented in line with those values.
- Deep understanding of the audience and membership structure, and how to use insight research and analytics to continually refine this understanding.
- Equally at home in digital media environments and print, with a track record of editing in both. Solid grasp of video and interactive graphics as content formats.
- Know how to select and present the best, most relevant journalism in all formats, know what does not work and make qualified calls
- Understand modern and innovative journalism and storytelling techniques.
- Extensive experience as a journalist and superb news judgment.
- Lead and inspire our journalism team to come up with ideas; excellent communications skills. Know how to delegate, brief and give constructive feedback
- Sound organizational abilities: setting agendas, managing projects, forward planning for the upcoming days, in conjunction with the longer-range strategy set by the Executive Editor.
- Innovative and creative thinker, leader and manager.
