McClatchy seeks a city editor/senior editor

Come join one of the most diverse and dynamic newsrooms in America and see for yourself why Miami is such an interesting city for news. As the editor of the team that covers local cities and businesses, your priority will be guiding reporters to deliver aggressive accountability journalism and stories that draw readers by highlighting developments in their communities that have an impact on their lives.

There are plenty of stories, the challenge is choosing which to tackle. Your job as editor is to make the decisions smarter, the copy sharper, the audience bigger and the reporters better.

You must be adept at helping reporters focus their energies on stories that make a difference and topics that matter to readers. How do the actions of lawmakers actually affect neighbors? What is behind the push for certain regulations? Why would someone living here care about this story?

This editor must be able to meet the challenge of covering policy in a way that is interesting and relevant for our audience. Framing stories with our audience in mind is critical, as is keeping a close eye on metrics to see what coverage resonates and which stories don’t, and using that information to make smart decisions.

Finding and building a digital audience by tapping into the themes and issues that directly affect people in South Florida, expanding the Herald’s reach to undercovered neighborhoods and being fearless in experimenting with various storytelling initiatives are all important elements for success.

Overview:

The city editor directs a team of reporters who are charged with holding elected and public officials accountable, spotting trends before others do, and stitching together a body of work that is the Miami story. Exclusives, enterprise, high-interest and impactful stories are the goal. Meeting process coverage is not. Your team’s reporters cover Miami-Dade County, the city of Miami, Miami Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, Coral Gables and minority businesses in South Florida.

What You’ll Bring:

The ideal candidate has considerable experience as a local government reporter and/or editor. In multilingual Miami, speaking Spanish, Portuguese or Haitian Creole is a big plus. You need to be savvy about reaching and building an audience, be adept with social media and appreciate that there’s more to daily journalism and connecting with readers than just the written word. You need a passion for accountability journalism while being the gatekeeper for tone, balance and fairness. You need to collaborate with your reporters to produce their best work and be part of a newsroom editing culture that collectively aims for a high bar every day.

You Will:

• Work with reporters to brainstorm the best approaches to daily news and enterprise coverage of their beats.
• Emphasize enterprise and accountability journalism, both short term and long term.
• Be ruthless about cutting down on “should-do” stories that don’t have an audience and instead focus the team on pursuing “must-read” stories.
• Steer your team clear of process stories, focusing on those that make a difference and matter to readers.
• Edit to make good stories better and excellent stories exceptional.
• Write active, engaging headlines to attract the best audience for each story.
• Give clear direction to reporters on the front end and constructive, professional feedback on the back end.
• Collaborate with newsroom colleagues to include the visuals team as early as possible so that videos and photos enhance the stories your reporters tell.
• Use the most current best practices for social media and audience engagement.
• Be committed to reflecting the diversity of our community in coverage.

Qualifications:

• Five years of daily news reporting and/or editing with at least some of that time covering/editing local government and political topics.
• A track record of leadership and working with a team of daily news reporters.
• An understanding of digital publishing, online metrics and reader engagement.

Job requirements:

• Flexible days and hours are required. Working nights, weekends and holidays may occasionally be required as part of newsroom editing rotations.
• Long periods of keyboarding are required.
• Using personal transportation to get to community events or meetings out of the office may be required.
• Proficiency with basic AP style and being able to edit at a high level for spelling, grammar and punctuation is required.
• Proficiency with financial math used in the context of municipal budgets and other public documents is required.
• Understanding of and adherence to professional journalism standards for balance and fairness as well as an understanding of libel law is required.

For further details click here.