Rest of World seeks a Middle East and Africa editor

Rest of World is hiring an editor to oversee its Africa and Middle East coverage, commissioning and publishing stories across formats regularly from the two regions. This position will manage two in-house reporters and freelance contributors, develop ideas to build our coverage of the two regions, and assign and edit a broad mix of stories based on the publication’s coverage areas.

This role will be the creative engine for determining how we cover countries across Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa, and the Middle East, and will be regularly called on to collaborate with our global distributed editorial team on ambitious projects. We’re looking for a well-rounded utility player who combines rigorous editing skills with a background, or strong interest in, tech and business journalism.

The ideal candidate for this role knows the difference between a topic and a story, and has a keen sense of what subject matter and framing will appeal to an audience that cares about technology’s effect. We expect this editor to apply those learnings to publish clear-eyed, insightful stories that go beyond the daily headlines. They should thrive in an ambitious and highly collaborative environment, regularly working with other editors and the audience engagement team to ensure we’re maximizing every opportunity for the story to succeed.

This is a contract role and can be based in any major regional hub, including Kenya, South Africa, Turkey, or the UAE. Candidates must possess the right to work in their current location, as Rest of World is unable to sponsor work authorization for this role.

This position will report to the Deputy Editor based in India.

Responsibilities

• Deliver publication-ready journalism that is engaging, deeply reported and arrestingly well-written on issues that resonate with our readers. Elevate the quality of our stories, so each story feels whole, intentional, and goal-oriented
• Coach reporters on individual story conception, reporting plans, source development, and writing skills all the way to the final stage
• Mentor staff reporters and regular contributing reporters, fostering a culture of excellence, innovation, collaboration, and fun
• Recruit a bank of freelance reporters who regularly and reliably contribute articles
• Travel within the coverage region to attend industry events and conduct interviews with executives, academics and policy-makers to inform coverage
• Report to the deputy editor on final edits and collaborate to test new ideas and formats for stories
• Collaborate with audience and product teams to come up with audience- and product-first story ideas, helping turn those ideas into compelling and engaging storytelling formats
• Work with the deputy editor and audience team to assess the monthly performance of published work, and present it to the editorial leadership

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience editing, with a strong background in reporting and writing business or tech stories
• Experience managing reporters is preferred
• Willingness to travel within the region
• Has a strong work ethic, comfortable with collaboration, a motivated self-starter
• Collaborative, enjoys working in teams with different disciplines and learning from others
• Language skills that allow working with local reporters are a major plus

How to Apply

To apply, please send a resume and a short cover letter to jobs@restofworld.org with “Editor – Middle East & Africa” in the subject line by December 13, 2024. In your cover letter, please share at least three stories you have edited recently and describe your role in shaping them from ideas to execution. Additionally, please pick one story published by Rest of World from Africa in the past six months and discuss what it got right — or wrong — and how you’d do it differently.

We will ask up to three selected finalists to take a paid editing test as a part of the interview process.