News Director

WBRE/WYOU, a rare NBC/CBS Combo in Wilkes-Barre Scranton is looking for our next News Director. This is a great opportunity to be part of a dynamic team in the very first station owned by Nexstar Media.The right candidate will be a compassionate leader with strong mentoring skills. Primary duties include managing the day-to-day operation, recruiting, training, leading, and inspiring the next generation of journalists.

The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton DMA, #58, serves 17 counties in the beautiful mountains of NE Pennsylvania, just two hours from New York City and Philadelphia.

We produce more than 55-hours per week of news and a daily lifestyle program. We provide one of the region’s highest traffic websites, PAHomepage.com. Weather is important with many major tourist attractions. The Pocono Mountains have six ski resorts & waterparks, the Pocono NASCAR Speedway and numerous quaint towns to explore. The metro has AAA baseball & hockey, horse racing, lakes, hiking, fishing, dozens of locally owned restaurants and a very affordable cost of living.

The News Director leads and supervises all aspects of news, weather and sports programming production.

#LI-Onsite

• Manages all aspects of the News Department (other than Production)
• Plans and manages staffing, training, and performance evaluations for the News Department.
• Makes decisions regarding hiring, evaluation, promotion and termination of employees.
• Develops news coverage strategy for the station and its website.
• Critiques newscasts daily to correct errors, improve coverage and provide mentoring feedback to news staff.
• Assigns projects to staff and verifies that deadlines are being met.
• Ensures achievement of viewer rating goals.
• Determines programming and evaluation of equipment needs to produce quality programming.
• Responds to coverage questions.
• Works with other senior station leaders to establish and reach station goals.
• Performs other duties as assigned.

Requirements & Skills:

• Bachelor’s degree in Broadcast Journalism, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and work-related experience.
• Fluency in English.
• Excellent communication skills, both oral and written.
• Minimum five years’ experience in news programming production, with at least two years’ experience in a leadership role. (More or less depending on market size.)
• Experience guiding, directing and motivating subordinates, including setting performance standards and monitoring performance.
• Experience establishing long-range objectives and specifying the strategies and actions to achieve them.
• Ability to identify the developmental needs of others and to coach, mentor or otherwise help others to improve their knowledge or skills.
• Experience preparing and maintaining departmental budgets.
• Proficiency with computers, telephones, copiers, scanners, fax machines and other office equipment.
• Ability to meet deadlines, prioritize assignments and handle multiple tasks simultaneously.
• Ability to effectively listen to fully understand employee needs and communicate with a team to shape a solution.