Gannett seeks a sports trending editor

Gannett seeks a proven leader to work with an innovative team of digital reporters who create the sports trending coverage that starts the conversation in the country each day.

We create urgent, smart and innovative sports coverage that reach readers on any platform, illuminating and elevating the most important stories across the nation. We work closely with all of Gannett’s properties—USA Today and more than 200 local newspapers—to identify the top personalities, events and athletes to cover each day, elevating those stories for local, regional and national audiences. And we use metrics and analytics to help us anticipate coverage opportunities that are going to get the country talking. The position requires strong skills in journalism, leadership, and creativity.

The candidate will work with a team of reporters and editors to target the best opportunities to reach new sports audiences each day. This editor also works closely with other leaders in USA TODAY’s newsroom and across Gannett’s network of local sites to elevate the most important trending sports stories across the nation.

This position is full time remote, will include night or weekend work and can be based anywhere in the US, except for Alaska and Hawaii.

The right candidate:

Has proven experience in a digital environment ensuring reporters file accurate, concise, and clean copy on tight deadlines.
Has a robust understanding of the top sports topics, personalities and events making news across the country and can determine the focus areas for reporters to own to create conversation-starting journalism.
Is infinitely curious and always has a story idea ready to go.
Can help the team strategically manage their time to ensure a mix of short-form and longform journalism.
Manages empathetically and provides personalized coaching for reporters’ continued success.
Enjoys collaborating with editors and writers across the network on live coverage, breaking sports news and special packages.
Effectively prioritizes tasks in a fast-paced environment and juggles creative personalities.
Ensures our coverage includes a diversity of ideas, perspectives, and voices.
Upholds Gannett’s standards of journalistic rigor, accuracy, and fairness.

Responsibilities:

Coach reporters to produce a steady stream of breaking news, trending stories and enterprise coverage on a wide variety of topics.
Work with the content strategists and team leaders to ensure we’re covering the topics and issues most important to key audiences.
Develop enterprise coverage plans around tentpole events and other critical moments when we can connect with readers.
Monitor real-time metrics to develop a clear picture of audience opportunities.
Work collaboratively with other editors to produce coverage using innovative approaches.

Requirements:

Proven proficiency in applying analytics to content strategy.
Strong communication and collaboration skills.
Exposure to deadline-driven environment.
Exceptional planning and organizational skills.
SEO knowledge.
Self-motivation and self-direction.
Strong line-editing skills.
Strong people-management skills.
Strong problem-solving skills.
Creativity and out-of-the-box thinking.
Employment is contingent on passing a post-offer pre-employment background check.

Application Instructions:

We are eager to learn more about you and how you fit this role. When you apply, don’t limit your upload to a resume; show us what you’ve done. To do so, put together a single document file that includes the following, in this order: