West Region Weekend Editor

The Weekend Editor works with newsrooms and a regional planning team to cover scheduled events, trending topics and the unexpected. Our readers want news and updates to breaking stories impacting their lives including wildfires, heat waves, snowstorms, traffic on the I-10 and I-5. They want news from campaigns and county fairs from their cities and counties. And they want to know about stories developing over the weekend that will affect the days and weeks ahead.

This editor can write and edit with a strong voice, and is particularly interested in trending topics of conversation on social as well as traditional "breaking news." The position demands initiative, accuracy, urgency and insight.

Our weekend teams cover politics, crime, sports, trending, conversational and important real-time stories rising on social and within our communities as well as “stories of the day.” The Weekend Editor provides daily direction and leadership, editing live and working with multiple reporters, photographers and producers. The ideal candidate has a nose for stories and trends that are important and influential to our audiences. Working with newsrooms across multiple states, this editor initiates and directs multimedia, multiplatform coverage, using all necessary resources including video, photo and new storytelling formats.

This full-time position will be based in Fort Collins, Colorado, perennially among U.S. News and World Report’s best places to live. The Weekend Editor will work directly with the staff at the Fort Collins Coloradoan, along with peer newsrooms in the region, on a four-day schedule from Thursday through Sunday, with exceptions for major breaking news.

Job Level: Editor I

Minimum Salary: $50,000

Responsibilities:

Provide direction and leadership during breaking news events.
Strategize and launch coverage of news and trends, using news judgment, analytics and innovation.
Grow audiences through engagement on social platforms and through alternate story forms.
Lead and organize real-time coverage in fluid, fast-breaking, stressful situations.
Monitor real-time news through social media tools like CrowdTangle and Dataminr to sniff out the most important and fascinating stories important to our audiences.

Who we are hoping you are:

This editor should be able to shift from assigning and thinking through daily coverage to developing broad strategic approaches for breaking news and social media reporting. Ideally, we are looking for someone with some leadership experience, but we're also open to a reporter who is ready to make the jump to editing. You should have a keen interest in what people are talking about and the news that affects communities. You should also be passionate about serving the information needs of readers in the West through stories that are useful and interesting.

Some traits we are looking for:

Comfort with flexing different skill sets (and learning new ones.)
An insatiable curiosity about the community around us.
A love of serving information needs with stories but also solutions and conversation.
A love of, and experience with, collaboration.
An eye for honing in on the important conversations and stories of the day across any subject genre and found on any platform, whether social media, e-mail tips or our own sourcing.

Requirements:

Bachelor's or master’s degree in communications, journalism, marketing or related field or equivalent combination of education and experience.
Strong news judgment and editing skills.
Comfortable in fluid, fast-breaking, stressful situations.
A passion for empathetic, compassionate storytelling.
Attention to detail and accuracy.
Able to build a coverage strategy using analytics and innovation.
Able to work occasional late nights as needed by the news cycle.
This role requires a valid driver’s license, reliable transportation, and the minimum liability insurance required by state law.
Employment is contingent on passing a post-offer, pre-employment background check, drug screen and motor vehicle record check.

Application Instructions:

We are eager to learn more about you and how you fit this role. When you apply, don’t limit your upload to a resume; show us what you’ve done. To do so, put together a single document file that includes the following, in this order:

Your resume – one to two pages.
A cover letter that outlines how you would approach the job.
Links to 3-6 online samples of your work. Show us what you’ve produced or had a hand in that best reflects what you can do in your desired role.

It is important that these items be assembled into a single document and uploaded in PDF format. Completing these steps will ensure that your application receives the highest consideration.