Full-Time

Fortune seeks a West Coast business editor

Fortune is seeking an experienced, creative, enterprising editor to serve as a key part of our news operation in the U.S. and help the executive news editor grow digitally. 

This is an important role on the global news team. Our West Coast Business News editor will help shape how we cover the big business, economics, finance, management, tech, and career/workplace stories of the day, coordinating with both our East Coast-based team and our colleagues in Asia and Europe.  

The ideal candidate is interested in working closely and quickly with reporters and other editors to produce engaging and intelligent stories and distill complex topics into well-framed must-reads, and keep the news on our website updated in a timely way. 

As the global news desk includes subsections like Commentary, Real Estate, and Success (coverage of the workplace and careers), this is a wide-ranging role. It’s a perfect fit for someone who is a business news generalist and loves being part of the daily business news cycle as well as finding unique and creative angles into the stories of the day. 

As our Business News Editor, West Coast, you will:  

  • Assign and edit several articles per day on a range of topics in business and economics, from an unexpected Elon Musk move to stock market predictions to the identity of an accused crypto hacker 
  • Work closely with, direct, and mentor rising news reporters, interns, and fellows, helping them improve their pitches, reporting, and writing 
  • Collaborate effectively with other editors on the global News team and across our beat desks on topics like finance, cryptocurrency, tech, leadership, and health and wellness 
  • Monitor and pull stories from wire services for important news that doesn’t rise to the level of an original article 
  • Punch up headlines with an eye toward the digital audience  
  • Ensure our coverage includes a diversity of ideas, perspectives, and voices  
  • Uphold Fortune’s standards of journalistic rigor, accuracy, and fairness  

The right candidate:  

  • Has at least five years’ experience editing business news on a fast-paced desk; knows the business news landscape well and can see and find opportunities to drive coverage and readership at Fortune  
  • Is proficient and fluent in financial, economic, and tech news, with knowledge of key industry trends, leaders, and companies as well as business trends and economic indicators 
  • Serves as an editorial leader, providing smart, authoritative direction for reporters and insights into the topics and framings that will resonate with our target digital audience; can turn a jumble of ideas into clean, accurate, and insightful copy on deadline 
  • Reads a lot of news from a breadth of sources and has a pulse on the most important business, economic, and top stories of the day  
  • Has a roll-up-your-sleeves mentality, occasionally writing/reporting, serving as a player-coach, and leading by example  
  • Can juggle multiple assignments at once and move quickly and decisively  
  • Is comfortable using data tools like Parsely, Chartbeat, or Google Analytics to inform story and headline choices and give feedback to reporters 
  • Is willing to be pinged outside of 9-5 hours in the case of breaking news and can be ready to jump on with a plan 
  • Is interested in reaching new audiences by thinking about SEO and social headlines  
  • Is infinitely curious; generates fresh, compelling story ideas and angles on the topic everyone is talking about for original takes of fact, analysis, and/or framing 
  • Communicates and manages professionally and effectively in a remote/hybrid environment  
  • Is a quick study, has a fast metabolism and an ability to respond and shift gears quickly and intelligently 
  • Motivates staff writers and helps them thrive 

Location: Strong preference for this role to be based in San Francisco or Los Angeles, but may be based elsewhere on the West Coast. 

To apply, go here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.

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