Senior News Editor

Description

We’re Search Engine Journal (Owned by Alpha Brand Media). We’ve been covering the search industry and digital strategy world since 2003 with in-depth and actionable guides, tips, trends, and insights – plus breaking news and analysis from the Search Engine Journal team and hundreds of expert industry practitioners. We serve 3 million monthly pageviews, 1.7M visitors, and half a million social followers.

We’re looking for a Senior News Editor to play a crucial role in the evolution of SEJ into a full-fledged media outlet. By assigning, editing, reporting on, and writing about industry news, research, and ideas for our core audience of marketers and other key business stakeholders, this person will be integral to SEJ’s continued growth as a publication.

Skills and Qualifications

• Strong writing, editing, and copy-editing skills, with careful attention to detail and knowledge of AP style.
• Ability to write clearly and with authority about business and technology.
• Solid editorial judgment with the capacity to identify news and features, and to create, edit, and assign accurate, engaging, well-written content.
• Understanding of analytics and social media platforms, trends, tools, practices, and measurement.
• General, working knowledge of SEO and SEM
• Ideally, the Senior News Editor has 5-7 years of experience writing and editing for business or technology publications/platforms.
• Experience managing editorial staff, including in-house and/or freelance writers.

Preferred Competencies 

• Experience developing sources among an in-demand network.
• Experience scaling a media publication through internal and external talent.
• SEO or digital marketing experience
• Experience working with content management systems, WordPress, etc.

Responsibilities and Duties

• Serve as deputy editor, making editorial decisions and plans, sometimes in the absence of the Editor-in-Chief.
• Assign news items to staff writers and freelancers, which includes:
  • Evaluating pitches and assigning stories accordingly.
  • Monitoring breaking and developing news, assigning items to writers, and undertaking writing responsibility when necessary.
• Edit the work of staff writers and freelancers.
• Work with the Editorial and Technical SEO teams to:
  • Analyze historical and current traffic data to identify opportunities for growth 
  • Analyze historical and current market data and trends to identify opportunities for feature stories, investigative pieces, and non-breaking news content.
• Contributes to the general SEJ editorial calendar, planning news content in a meaningful and strategic manner.
• Collaborates with Marketing to:
  • Package articles for maximum reach and impact for SEJ’s core and untapped audiences.
  • Leverage SEJ news coverage/stories for marketing collateral, events, and best-in-class social media content.
• Mentors and develops career growth for news team members.

Why Work at SEJ?

1. Full-Time Remote. You will be working from home in your pajamas, or whatever you want to wear.
2. We manage by execution or goals. So long as you get a lot of work done, we’re happy campers.
3. Complete Work/Life Balance. If you’re routinely working more than 45ish hours, you’re gonna get a friendly talking-to. We want you to be operating at 100% capacity, which means that you need to rest.
4. You Can Be Yourself. You don’t have to put on a fake, professional face. You can just be yourself. 
5. Major Opportunities for Career Growth. We are not trying to just be a small business. We promote quickly once we identify talent. It doesn’t matter what your credentials are – it matters what you get done.
6. Strongly Anti-BS. Anybody in the company can (and is expected to) tell the CEO when she is wrong. There are no bureaucratic or BS rules getting in the way of getting work done.
7. No Micro-Management. Once you’re trained and have demonstrated you know your stuff, we are pretty hands-off. In fact, if you need external management to stay on-task and motivated, we probably aren’t the place for you.
8. Supportive Environment. We don’t operate via intense stress or unreasonable top-down deadlines. Everyone wants you to be successful – internal politics are at a minimum here.
9. No Toxic People Allowed. We try very hard to get to know people as humans first . Imagine working with people who want to see you succeed instead of tearing you down – how nice would that be?
10. We’ll Invest in Your Training. We want you – and everyone – to always be learning. You’ll be doing that here, of course – but we also encourage, time spent outside of the day-to-day to learn new things that will not only make your work better, but your life better, too. =

What is the ideal personality for someone in this role? 

Our general rule of thumb: Please be cool. What does that mean, exactly? Be accountable. Be human.  Be silly, smart, and – above all else – be empathetic. 

P.S. The confidence gap is a real thing, and we hope that doesn’t prevent us from meeting remarkable talent. Please don’t be shy; apply! We can’t wait to hear from you.

Status: Full-Time | Salary: $100,000 – $110,000 | Location: Remote (U.S. or Canada based)

Disclaimer

The above is intended to describe the general content of the requirements for the performance of this job. It is not to be construed as an exhaustive statement of essential functions, responsibilities, or requirements.

How To Apply

If this sounds like the opportunity you have been searching for, we would love the opportunity to connect.