Technical.ly seeks a managing editor

Technically Media, a local niche news and events organization best known for its local tech news network Technical.ly and social impact site Generocity.org, is hiring a Technical.ly Managing Editor to oversee the daily publishing and community engagement led by Technical.ly’s editorial team. This role would work exclusively on our Technical.ly product.

This person with exceptional news and community building instincts will report to the Technical.ly Chief Creative Officer to shape and execute the network’s editorial strategy and model. This person will lead a team of 3 full-time reporters in the Mid-Atlantic region and help set the strategy and tactics that are meaningful for a modern newsroom.

Technical.ly is the premier news organization reporting on how local business communities change, with dedicated focus on the country’s densest region. Our newsroom builds trust with technologists and entrepreneurs, helping these leaders and others navigate their careers through an economy in change. Technical.ly was founded 10 years ago by young reporters with a simple premise: digital community journalism needs a business model beyond advertising, and with local tech communities surging, a news organization could play an important role in facilitating connections.

The ideal candidate has experience in and a willingness to experiment with new media and is interested in supporting and learning from a community journalism enterprise — an organization building a business model around helping make connections, including jobs, education and more. Our newsroom pledges to be accurate, relevant and productive for the communities we serve. Plus, as a small, growing news media startup, we’re probably more fun than your traditional editorial role.

Presently Technical.ly is published in four local markets, with an additional network-wide site and frequent pop-ups and perspectives from other local tech ecosystems. Excluding that network site, we aim to publish 4-5 items per market, per day, including sponsored and marketing content — or 20-25 items across the network per day. With plans to continue to expand Technical.ly, this role has opportunity for additional growth.

This is a full-time salaried position. Staff have access to our company healthcare plan (currently with Independence Blue Cross), dental (United Concordia), a 401k plan, a monthly IT stipend for our bring-your-own-device work environment and other related benefits.

Expected Responsibilities

The person in this role is expected to spend three quarters of their time editing; and one-quarter focused on strategic, cross-departmental opportunities.

Responsibilities include:

• Inform and then deploy an overall organizational editorial strategy, including our annual Editorial Calendar, quarterly series (like the RealLIST) and daily items that inform our readers.
• Support and advise our reporters, who are chiefly responsible for maintaining and growing quality relationships with technologists, entrepreneurs, and the business leaders who support them.
• Oversee metrics like monthly site visitors, time on site, per-staff member content output, open and click rates of our newsletter products, among others.
• Manage all newsroom staff members, including full-time Market Editors and Lead Reporters, as well as part-time Lead Reporters and freelance contributors in the markets this editor is responsible.
• Provide external support to reporters and organization by interacting with community around reader feedback
• Edit content daily in up to three markets, as well as audience-focused marketing content, sponsored content, underwritten reporting projects, sponsored email newsletters (all represent “Creative”), employer-branding content (“Talent”) and other products.
• Uphold the tenets of Technical.ly voice, context, style, editorial strategy and organizational goals.
• Contribute to managing and improving Technical.ly’s social media strategy.
• Contribute ideas for new editorial products, like newsletter or editorial calendar series, by working cross-departmentally with product team.
• Act as the primary liaison between the Technical.ly newsroom and other Technical.ly business units.
• Support professional development among newsroom staff members by leading, highlighting and coordinating opportunities for focused learning.
• Support freelance contributors, introducing them to the tenets of Technical.ly’s unique beat-reporting approach.
• Manage the budget of the Editorial department and make needed budget adjustments to fulfill organizational and departmental goals.

• Limited travel to our Technical.ly markets and meeting with our lead reporters would be required. Consider this a monthly visit to at least one market.

Qualifications

Position is ideal for someone with editorial experience and interests but seeking something that allows for deep creativity in developing a sustainable journalism product. Bonus points for being excited by local or niche news specifically.

Candidates should likely possess the following qualifications:

• 3-5 years of editing experience and at least that in beat reporting and long-form editorial work.
• Experience leading a newsroom, including editing and managing reporters and managing a departmental budget is preferred
• Obsessive view of AP style, grammatical and syntax standards and the like. Must have an opinion on the Oxford comma.
• Must have empathy to ask ‘why’ of our coverage, an instinct to know when publicly critical reporting provides the most value and when asking the question privately first to maintain relationship connections does the job for longer-term community building. Our mission to make a community better, smarter and more engaged.
• Be excited by our mission and want to represent it on a national stage. We’re proud of what we do for our communities and are passionate about exploring how we fund our work by serving those very same communities.
• An understanding of online content management systems, and social media applications is required. Experience with WordPress or other open source content management systems is desirable.

Other Information:

• This role is based out of Technically Media’s Philadelphia headquarters.
• This role reports to the Technical.ly Chief Creative Officer.
• This role requires occasional, compensated travel to events and meetings in each of Technical.ly’s markets.
• This role must be available to support breaking news, relevant event production and working with lead reporters, though other hours are flexible and we celebrate work-life balance.
• Though results matter most and Technically Media prides itself on flexibility, as a guide, this role might expect to work roughly 45 hours a week.

Interested individuals should contact Technical.ly Chief Creative Officer Brian James Kirk at brian@technical.ly. Please submit a resume, cover letter (with 2-3 references) and examples of your work.