The Midwest Newsroom seeks a versatile audience and innovation editor to help us better understand our readers and listeners, distribute our content, track our impact and develop new product strategies.

Based at KCUR 89.3 in Kansas City, the Midwest Newsroom is a partnership between NPR and member stations to provide investigative journalism and enterprise reporting with a focus on Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska.

The partners in this collaboration are Iowa Public Radio, KCUR and St. Louis Public Radio in Missouri, Nebraska Public Media and NPR. We also work closely with Harvest Public Media and Kansas News Service. Our team includes an investigative reporter, a data journalist, an investigative editor, a senior content editor and managing editor.

Job responsibilities

• Use analytics and surveys to tell us more about who our audience is and how and why they use our content. Mine this data to help us understand and expand our readership and help our journalism have greater reach.
• Develop and execute strategies to better understand our impact on policies, practices, legislation and the lives of the communities we cover.
• Build a content distribution network that includes local, regional and national media and develop a strategy for republication.
• Work with the newsroom to maximize search engine optimization; help to workshop SEO-optimized headlines; work with our editorial team to optimize our search terms.
• Work with the newsroom and partners to develop audience and community engagement strategies pegged to specific stories.
• Manage our social media accounts on X and Instagram. This involves working with our editorial team on producing all the copy for each account, and ensuring that we have a lively and engaging regular feed of content.
• Advise partners on audience engagements strategy as needed.
• In close partnership with the newsroom and our partners consider how The Midwest Newsroom can develop a regular podcast and newsletter and explore other content platforms and channels.
• Other duties as assigned.

Minimum qualifications

A Bachelor's degree or an equivalent combination of education and experience and at least 4 years of experience from which comparable knowledge and skills can be acquired is necessary.
 

Preferred qualifications

• At least 3 years of journalism experience
• At least 3 years of experience building and/or executing audience development strategies
• Strong writing and editing skills with keen attention to detail
• Experience in developing strategies to measure impact, both qualitatively and quantitatively
• Ability to analyze key performance metrics; experience with native social analytics. Experience with Chartbeat and Google Analytics is a plus.
• Community engagement experience via digital platforms and/or live events
• Ability to set and abide by project deadlines; ability to prioritize projects; experience managing both urgent, short-term projects and complex, longer-term projects.
• Track record of identifying new content opportunities and developing strategies to implement them
• Track record managing and supporting social accounts for a journalism brand
• Expert knowledge of social media trends and best practices for organic and paid posts.
• Familiarity with user experience and SEO content strategies
• Experience with newsroom content management systems
• Experience in public media
• Experience working with partners in a collaborative setting
• Knowledge of issues and opportunities in our four states
• Existing relationships with investigative journalism influencers: e.g. national organizations, newsletter publishers, academics and researchers.