Senior Editor, Politics

WIRED is seeking an experienced Editor to lead our Politics coverage - a news and scoop-driven endeavor that seeks to cover policy and regulation, and the people and forces that shape our Democracy, through the lens of technology and digital ecosystems. WIRED’s politics coverage is oriented around news and original reporting. Our goal is to unearth new information and break high-impact stories that help our audience understand how lawmakers and political actors leverage technology to achieve their goals – whether benevolent or otherwise.

To do well in this job you’ll need to be both a politics and a tech junkie, and someone who understands and thinks creatively about how vital technology is to political campaigns, policy, and voter behaviors today. You should be driven by news and a deep desire to break stories and come up with engaging enterprise work that makes a mark, and enthusiastic about working across teams and subject areas beyond core politics coverage.

Primary/Ongoing Responsibilities:

Conceive of, pitch, assign, track, and edit politics reporting written primarily by WIRED staff, with an emphasis on scoops and enterprise reporting.

Oversee, mentor, and manage a team of staff writers/reporters across the U.S. and UK.

Proactively seek out interesting, diverse voices to write about politics news in a timely, relevant way for the voice of WIRED.

Manage all projects from concept to execution including, but not limited to: partnering with photo/art teams on visuals and design to accompany stories; reading proofs and answering fact-checking and copy queries as needed; seeing stories through production processes; and partnering with social and/or video teams to ensure stories have maximum impact.

Assign and edit original content as well as adapt existing content for a variety of WIRED newsletters.

Meet individual and/or section KPIs as assigned (i.e. production expectations, UVs, engagement, time spent, and/or other related goals).

Partner with audience development and analytics to consistently improve content strategy and output.

Contribute to brand extensions, social platforms, and additional projects as needed.

Identify and work collaboratively with global markets on all relevant stories or packages

Represent the brand in a public-facing way as necessary, such as in press opportunities, panels and speaking engagements, and internal company presentations.

Additional projects/stories as assigned.

2024 U.S. Election - Specific Responsibilities:

Own and lead WIRED’s approach to the 2024 U.S. election - work across teams to ensure that WIRED is covering the U.S. election in an authoritative and prescient way across subject areas, from science to cybersecurity.

Develop and execute on a focused report that’s primed to break through and move the needle in 2024.

Collaborate closely with other senior editors to ensure that election coverage is unified and comprehensive across beats.

Publish at least 5 relevant, needle-moving stories per week to WIRED.com

Desired Qualifications:

At least 7 years of experience as an editor in a fast paced, digital and news-driven environment, with at least 2 years managing others.

A past portfolio of work that reflects significant experience with, and a deep curiosity for, the intersection of politics, lawmaking, communication, and technology.

Experience overseeing multi-platform content from brainstorm to deployment—balancing daily deadlines with longer-lead stories, approving ideas, sourcing art, scheduling posts, using a CMS platform to publish, promotion on newsletters and social, etc.

Experience and passion for delivering big, ambitious reporting projects in the political arena, with a knack for guiding reporters through the thorniest of endeavors.

Skilled at line-editing and helping writers achieve their best reporting and writing.

Able to structure a story for maximum impact, reader understanding, and engagement.

Facility with headlines, subheads, captions, display text, and other elements of story building.

Highly collaborative with excellent communication skills - adept at working with a diverse team of fact checkers, copy editors, designers, photo editors, digital producers, social media producers and story editors.

Social media-savvy, and experience using social platforms to monitor conversations around major elections and other political events.

Excellent time management and prioritization skills

The expected base salary range for this position is from $95,000- $150,000. Salary offers are based on a wide range of factors including but not limited to relevant skills, training, experience, and education.