Editor, Short Form and Broadcast

Sightline Media Group is the leading news organization covering military, defense, public sector, federal technology, C4ISR and cyber defense. Our independent, award-winning journalism offers coverage from around the globe, from Sightline headquarters in the Washington, DC area to bureaus and correspondents in the U.S. and around the world. Sightline Media offers our business clientele a wide range of platforms to reach the market. From digital and mobile solutions to events, thought leadership, publications, video and custom options, Sightline works with clients on opportunities that have credibility, integrity, engagement and impact.

Overview

Military Times and Defense News seek an Editor, Short Form and Broadcast to develop our social video and TV post-production efforts. This is a multifaceted role that requires the right talent to generate daily short-form videos, and be a fast and efficient editor for our half-hour television program, Defense News Weekly. The Editor will be expected to pitch and source short-form/social videos on a daily basis with the goals of maximizing follower base and impressions, and creating growth across social platforms, tracking relevant analytics. An ability to appear on camera is a plus.

Secondarily, the Editor will edit our weekly half-hour TV show, Defense News Weekly, and support the team as needed for all production operations, including live streaming events.

The ideal candidate will have a background in news and creating video for digital distribution, with an all-around skillset that includes the ability to write, shoot and edit their own content, and utilize best-practices for distribution. A functional understanding of the U.S. military and defense spaces is helpful, but not required.

Among The Responsibilities That Fall To The Editor Are

Content Creation On a day-to-day basis, provide our audience with short-form stories, ready and optimized for social audience growth. These will come in two basic forms: news videos, and regular series, which can span a breadth of topics and tones. For the former, a sound news judgement and sense of what works online are key. For the latter, there is wide latitude for ideas and experimentation. An ability to appear on camera for some of these videos is desired.

The editor should eventually be able to handle all elements of creating a video, from finding and sourcing stories, to writing scripts to editing or shooting any additional footage if needed, with proper lighting and audio collection. Training will be provided.

Weekly Show Edit A second, equally important role will be to edit, on a rotating basis, our flagship TV program, Defense News Weekly. This is a half-hour show created for broadcast, and requires comfort assembling a longform project. Edit responsibility will be shared among the team, but this task will regularly fall to the Editor.
Upload and Distribution A key part of this role is to act as Military Times/Defense News’ point person for staying at the front end of industry best practices for digital distribution in order to maximize views and followers across platforms. A keen understanding of the terrain and ability to use the relevant tools to maximize views and impressions for every video the team produces is central to this role.

This position will also upload videos to various CMS and social media platforms, and generate copy and thumbnails to accompany videos and stories.

To track what efforts are working best the Editor will also need to track analytics to be able to report to the team what is performing, and what is not.

On-Camera Presence An aspirational aspect of this role would be for the Editor to host digital series, and act as an on-camera talent. An openness to this idea is a preference.
Live Event Production Support For Military Times and Defense News Video, live events are all-hands-on-deck operations. Every member of the team is expected to learn and be able to operate our live-switching software to ensure redundancy. This will be taught on the job.

This is a highly challenging and fast-paced role that requires a jack-of-all-trades experience set and suite of multimedia capabilities. Knowledge of Adobe products and Premiere Pro are required. The ability to learn on the job and absorb new skills quickly is key.

To apply, please send resume and a list of relevant clips to stories and on-camera appearances to bmurray@militarytimes.com and dwoolfolk@defensenews.com.