Norfolk, Virginia
Athens, Ohio
Berkeley, California
Posted: 17-Mar-23
Location: Nationwide
Type: Full Time
Salary: $80,000 - $90,000 w/ benefits
Categories:
Salary Details:
Preferred Education:
Additional Information:
Senior Editor, Digital
Reporting to: Director of Audience
At Science Friday, we explore everything from the outer reaches of space to the tiniest microbes in our bodies using public radio and podcasting, digital and social media storytelling, and by creating meaningful communities and learning experiences for people around the country and world. We serve as a conduit of science learning and engagement, unapologetically advocating for equity in science and education by making science accessible to all, highlighting injustices, and celebrating the diversity of the human experience in STEM, our workplace, and our programming. We do all of this in service of our mission to increase the public’s access to science and scientific information.
Science Friday is seeking an experienced science journalist to join our Audience Team as our new Senior Editor, Digital.
Reporting to the Director of Audience, the Senior Editor will work in collaboration with multiple other staff and freelancers to bring original science storytelling to our online audiences alongside a cohesive online experience that builds on Science Friday’s radio, events, education, and engagement initiatives.
This full-time position is open for full-time remote work or can be based in our Manhattan office, with generous WFH flexibility. The Senior Editor, Digital is working as a member of Science Friday’s audience team which includes experiences, research and evaluation, education, social, and digital teams. Success in this role will be measured by conventional, native metrics of audience engagement and growth online, but more importantly, success will be measured against Science Friday’s vision for impact by gathering qualitative evidence of science learning, discourse, action, confidence, belonging, and sharing among audiences. Truly exceptional performance in this role will result in a portfolio of successful and innovative stories, newsletters, or other online-first engagements that use original online storytelling to generate impact. Extensive collaboration is expected for this role, whether with internal editorial and programming staff or external stakeholders, including institutions, influencers, STEM professionals, media brands, children, animals, bots, or any other entity that has value to share with science-curious publics.
The Senior Editor will have mentorship responsibilities to Science Friday’s growing staff and stable of freelance writers and editors to ensure a diverse array of web-first stories and perspectives are delivered to audiences regularly, concisely, on-time, accurately, and with the utmost attention to detail and editorial quality. As the final word on editorial quality in original online stories, the Senior Editor is responsible for shepherding the written word through editing, copyediting, fact-checking, and publication, while maintaining Science Friday’s internal style guide through social and paradigm shifts in the journalism community.
What we’re looking for:
- Someone with a journalistic background who prioritizes the audience experience in their reporting and outputs;
- A remarkably curious person who finds joy in learning new things and working with others;
- A person who loves finding and telling science stories on the web;
- A detail oriented, generous, and collaborative editor;
- A proficient project and time manager with experience wrangling multiple projects as well as freelancer editors, authors, and fact-checkers;
- A purpose and principle-driven journalist who can clearly articulate the importance of equity, belonging, and accessibility.
Responsibilities Include:
Write, Edit, and Curate Original Science Stories For Web
- Conceive of, report, write, and produce two monthly stories of varying lengths for web.
- Collaborate closely with a community of freelancers and Science Friday’s radio and digital producers to solicit, develop, and edit original stories from pitch to publication.
- Seek, find, and solicit articles for syndication that reflect exceptional science, health, and technology journalism and that augments or enhances Science Friday’s original coverage.
- Edit web copy for clarity, style and fact-checking (radio segment pages, original articles, and from syndicated media partners), drawing on a stable of freelancers to support increased capacity requirements where appropriate.
- Work with the Director of Audience to pitch and develop cross-platform and cross-department collaborations and storytelling products that serve new and emerging audiences.
Website Oversight
- Manage contract developers, designers, and engineers to maintain Science Friday's website, storage, archive, and technical platforms.
- Serve as a liaison between different SciFri teams and our developers to fix ongoing website problems and create new features.
- Use knowledge of HTML, CSS, and Javascript to diagnose and integrate quick fixes to our Wordpress site.
- Keep the SciFri style guide for web updated in coordination with radio style guide and evolving social and journalistic norms.
- Measure and report the size and engagement of our web audience.
- Identify opportunities to improve the representativeness, inclusiveness, and accessibility of Science Friday’s perennial digital content.
- Integrate audience feedback into future reporting and storytelling.
- Identifying opportunities to represent and serve local communities with our work.
- Survey traffic analytics on Google Analytics, social media platforms, and report back to teams, utilizing these numbers to inform future reporting.
Help Our Other Work Shine On The Web
- Work with Radio Producers to edit, refine, embellish, and expand upon the descriptions of radio conversations for web and podcast.
- Working with the Digital Producer-Engagement, use Wordpress CMS to publish all content associated with on-air, events, education, and donor programming to Science Friday’s website, including licensing, commissioning, and/or embedding related multimedia, ordering and integrating transcripts, and copyediting and formatting text for consistency and style.
- Craft attention-grabbing (and responsible) SEO-friendly headlines for content published to the web.
- Work with the Director of News, Director of Audience, and Science Friday’s Fundraising Team to ensure that syndications, partnerships, and station collaborations are accurately represented on Science Friday’s website.
Occasional Organization Contributions:
- Grant applications, reporting, and tracking, as needed;
- Monthly expense reporting;
- Attendance at annual Board meetings, as available;
- Willingness to represent Science Friday at events and conferences.
Qualifications:
- 6 or more years of multimedia publishing and editing experience, ideally in a journalistic or marketing environment;
- Thorough knowledge of journalistic principles, ethics and standards;
- Demonstrated success in creating native, engaging digital stories that have deepened engagement and expanded reach;
- Comfortable with copyediting following to AP style;
- Experience using digital engagement metrics to drive decisions and future digital strategy;
- Familiarity with HTML and content management systems, Wordpress familiarity preferred;
- Demonstrated ability to work as part of a team with patience, kindness, empathy, and a sense of humor;
- Experience with implementing search engine optimization, reader recirculation, and newsletter recruitment strategy.
Nice-to-haves:
- Knowledge of database systems, git, and back-end coding languages;
- Experience with data reporting;
- Dual language proficiency.
