The primary responsibility of the night shift copy editor/page designer, an integral part of the universal desk, is the editing of news and sports stories and preparing them for publication to ensure we are giving our audience the high-quality content they want. This person also will design pages – both news and sports – that engage our readers and present news and feature stories in compelling fashion.
Essential Job Functions:
- Helps foster a newsroom environment that champions excellent journalism, collaboration, creativity and teamwork.
- Edits news and sports stories to make sure content is fair, balanced, accurate and compelling.
- Edits all written content for adherence to Associated Press style, spelling and grammar.
- Works with a digital-first mentality by posting stories and making any corrections and/or additions to stories already posted. Works to improve digital content to attract and hold readers.
- Flags stories that may raise ethical or legal concerns.
- Writes headlines and summaries.
- Writes and edits photo captions, fact boxes and other story elements as necessary.
- Writes brief news items from press releases.
- Proofs completed pages, checking all headlines, cutlines and design elements for accuracy and clarity. Fills out checklist, initials it and places it on filing cabinet.
- Answers news desk telephones, responding to or forwarding inquiries and taking messages as needed. Handles calls with courtesy at all times.
- Adapts to frequent changes and interruptions in daily work routine.
- Proficiently uses all newsroom editing, photographic, wire handling and pagination software.
- Paginates news and sports pages.
In addition to the essential functions listed above, the employee is expected to exercise honesty, integrity and respect with all clients and co-workers, maintain a professional appearance and demeanor, demonstrate a positive attitude, communicate effectively with co-workers and clients, work with accuracy, efficiency, and attention to detail, respect the work environment and keep it as neat and clean as possible, and exercise initiative to learn new skills and tasks and to help co-workers when possible. The employee is also expected to perform other similar duties and functions as required from time to time.
Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree or equivalent.
- 3 to 5 years’ experience in journalism preferred.
- Demonstrated experience in news and feature writing and well-established editing skills.
- Some knowledge of sports helpful.
- Must be able to put together a story on deadline for the print edition by using information gathered by a reporter in the field who is posting online and/or using social media.
- Has familiarity with all digital platforms, with ability to post and edit stories, along with photographs, video and other graphic elements.
- Ability to work well under pressure to meet deadlines.
- Thorough familiarity with journalism and libel law.
- Fluency in Web and social media technology.
- Ability to work evenings, weekends and holidays to accommodate news coverage.
- Possesses an understanding of multicultural issues of significance to our community.
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