Senior Editor

The Opportunity

The Senior Editor, Public Health and Safety, guides and leads a staff of reporters and an editor, public health and safety, to produce a wide range of enterprising, audience-focused coverage across digital, audio, print and social media platforms. This editor sets the priorities and standards for the public health and safety desk and also works with the news desk to collaboratively execute the strategy in breaking news and daily coverage. Aside from assigning and editing, this editor also will make staffing and spending decisions for the desk, develop staff members to meet their professional goals, the goals of the newsroom and of Chicago Public Media, actively shape coverage across the newsroom and help build and engage our audiences, connecting with communities throughout Chicago. The editor guides the department’s members to accomplish our editorial mission and our key goals of helping our audience know and understand Chicago, feel more in control and stay relevant.

General Responsibilities

• Lead and guide a staff in producing informative, enlightening and impactful news and distinctive, must-read enterprise stories and investigations that maintain our leadership position in informing and serving our diverse communities; providing original, insightful coverage on public health and safety and how these matters affect our communities; and providing people with the information they need to understand Chicago better, make the most of our region and participate in their communities.
• Help ensure that we have a compelling mix of digital, audio and print stories to serve our different audiences on our many products and platforms.
• Plan, produce and promote news stories, short- and long-term enterprise and investigations that shine a light on public health and safety, extending beyond coverage of official actions, wrongdoing and corruption to ensure a better-informed and more engaged citizenry.
• Help reporters dig beyond the official story to explore the complexities of violence, policing, incarceration and public safety to help empower readers to better understand the causes of crime so they can take steps to make their communities safer and hold public officials accountable for not only wrongdoing but also for falling short in helping to ensure the public’s safety.
• Coach reporters in producing impactful coverage about public health, separating fact from fiction and examining inequities, complexities and solutions that could help improve the health of our communities. Help reporters find and produce reports on health that break and explain important stories, in the process showing how health issues are core to matters of equity and safety, though not limiting our health coverage solely to stories related to safety. 
• Help reporters find stories and voices from Chicago’s diverse communities and examine the underlying causes of crime and illness as well as what’s being done and what more could be done to improve public health and safety in Chicago through stories that engage and resonate with readers, rather than speak at them.

Management Responsibilities

• Set the goals, strategy and plans to achieve the growing ambitions for our coverage of public health and safety and help build community engagement, audience loyalty and membership.
• Plan and guide original, impactful and enterprising news stories, short- and long-term investigations and other enterprise reporting, helping to elevate storytelling across platforms  and mediums to produce compelling stories online, on air, in print, on social media, in newsletters and anywhere else.
• Manage a team that includes another editor and reporters with a wide range of experience, developing and inspiring journalists at all levels while creating a collaborative, supportive work environment to help a diverse range of employees succeed.
• Collaborate with the other editors and other stakeholders in the newsroom, including the audience, audio news production and visuals teams.
• Build collaboration and communication in the newsroom, across the organization and with any other news organizations with whom we might partner, including actively communicating about coverage in advance through newsroom systems and meetings and soliciting feedback early and often to make the most of all of our work.
• Help team members develop their talents, get appropriate training, set goals for growth and achieve their ambitions.
• Help improve our overall editorial excellence, workplace culture and impact. 
• Promote diversity, equity and inclusion.
• Represent our newsroom and organization, building our reputation in our communities and our industry.
• Work collaboratively in a union environment.

Skills & Experience

• A record of excellence in guiding and editing news and enterprise work of distinction, experience leading and inspiring a diverse mix of journalists, a collaborative bent and a belief in the mission and power of public media.
• A proven ability to help conceive a wide range of top-quality short- and long-term reporting and to guide and edit that work under deadline pressure across platforms while maintaining the highest standards of journalistic ethics and excellence.
• Audio editing experience is preferred, but candidates eager to learn and develop audio editing skills are welcome to apply. 
• Familiarity with Chicago is a plus.

Compensation

The expected pay range for this position is $101-800 to $120,800 per ANNUM.

Chicago Public Media provides pay ranges representing its good faith estimate of what the organization reasonably expects to pay for a position.  The pay offered to a selected candidate will be determined based on factors such as (but not limited to the scope and responsibilities of the position, the qualifications of the selected candidate, departmental budget availability, internal equity, geographical location, and external market pay for comparable jobs.