San Antonio Biz Journal seeks managing editor

The San Antonio Business Journal is looking for someone ready and excited to take on the challenge of running our newsroom during a time of growth and economic diversification in our city.

The SABJ managing editor must be a dynamic, authoritative and positive leader who is digitally savvy and able to handle a wide array of tasks every day. The M.E. is the newsroom’s chief operating officer, responsible for overseeing and driving an effective flow of content from conception to execution across all platforms.

The M.E. is a hands-on manager and coach for reporters and other newsroom staff who brings ideas, inspiration and guidance. Reporting directly to the editor-in-chief, the M.E. is a newshound who actively directs how the newsroom assets are deployed day-to-day — even minute-by-minute — to create the best news content possible in print and online, including mobile, email and social media. The M.E. must possess keen news judgment and be ready and able to make quick — yet thoughtful and confident — decisions. The M.E. must challenge staff to think and act more purposefully and swiftly — always with the reader in mind.

The M.E. must have strong organizational skills, including being able to diagnose and solve problems related to workflow and efficiency in news gathering and reporting. The M.E. must always be asking how the operation can run more smoothly and productively. The M.E. is expected to be a change agent in the newsroom, actively advocating for improvements and resources that can take the Business Journal’s content to the next level. The M.E. must run the newsroom always with audience growth and connection in mind. Relationships with sources and outreach into the community are desirable.

Communication skills are critical for the M.E., who is highly influential in setting newsroom standards, mood, expectations and culture. Along those lines, the M.E. is chief mentor for reporters, helping pave their way to continual improvement, learning and growth; all reporters must be managed toward excellence. At the same time, the M.E. is the eyes and ears in the newsroom in terms of keeping the editor-in-chief apprised of the newsroom’s status — operationally and emotionally.

Duties

• Run the operational side of the newsroom, ensuring content assignments are made, story and production deadlines adhered to and editorial standards met.
• Develop, oversee and edit stories.
• Work directly with reporters and manage them throughout the day on stories of all types; steer reporters toward beat-driven hard news breaks and scoops.
• Meet or exceed goals relating to audience-engagement such as page views, unique users, repeat visits, direct traffic, social media followings and growth, email newsletter circulation growth, paid print subscribership and other such measures.
• Orchestrate staff-produced content — images, charts, infographics — for multiple products across multiple platforms. Specifically, this requires conceptualizing storytelling strategies with reporters and making snap decisions on where best to route content.
• Manage and prioritize reporter activities to maximize the results for our audience.
• Manage the daily news meeting.
• Direct section, focus, copy and other editors, as well as photographers and other content contributors.
• Grow audience, constantly and relentlessly.
• Regularly participate in and attend Business Journal sponsored events.
• Take on any other assignment made by manager(s).

Requirements

• Strong news judgment
• Strong organizational skills
• Strong and accurate content and copy editing skills — an outstanding wordsmith who can spot and correct reporting and story flaws, and who can turn average copy into authoritative prose, while showing reporters how to do so
• Comfortable operating in rapidly changing media environment
• Daily and, preferably, weekly print experience for a business news operation
• Beat reporter experience
• Strong wordsmith who has demonstrated a talent for reporter and story development
• Hands-on experience in guiding and contributing to large-scale editorial projects
• Exposure to online environment and social media; blogging and online reporting a plus.

Experience

Three to five years of experience in newsroom management

To apply

Send cover letter, résumé and work samples to editor-in-chief Tony Quesada at tquesada@bizjournals.com.