• Job Type: Officer of Administration
• Bargaining Unit:
• Regular/Temporary: Regular
• End Date if Temporary:
• Hours Per Week: 35
• Standard Work Schedule:
• Building: Pulitzer Hall
• Salary Range: $100,000 - $110, 000

Position Summary

Reporting to the Executive Editor and working closely with the Managing Editor, the Senior Editor shares responsibility for all coverage in Columbia Journalism Review.

The Senior Editor will be an active thought partner in a new vision for CJR, which has evolved from a print magazine published several times a year into a daily website and email newsletter. Our audiences include journalists, thought leaders, educators, policy makers, and anyone who cares about the role of the press in upholding democracy. 

The Senior Editor has several key responsibilities, chiefly among them to conceive, assign, and edit coverage of journalism-related news in an ever-faster-moving news cycle. 

Among this editor’s key tasks will be generating story ideas, as well as quickly evaluating pitches and shaping them into relevant and thought-provoking stories for our website. They must excel at coaching staff writers and freelancers at the pitch stage and working closely with them throughout the editing process to produce timely and engaging off-the-news pieces, idea-driven essays and deeply reported magazine stories. The Senior Editor will also work to present these stories to our readers, including visual elements and multimedia; will become familiar with our online publishing system; and may help with graphics, audio and video production, social media outreach, and other tasks as needed.

The Senior Editor will help to recruit and retain talented contributors who represent diverse views and bring a variety of voices and experiences to our media coverage. This editor will also help supervise the three Delacorte Fellows, who work from September to May (nonrenewable) and are selected each year from the graduating class at the Columbia Journalism School. 

Responsibilities

• Oversee CJR’s day-to-day news coverage. Edit stories for the web.
• Develop and manage content strategy designed to advance CJR’s visibility and impact as a leading forum for news about the media, media criticism, First Amendment reporting, changing media business models, international journalism, ethics, and related topics.  
• Develop innovative outreach and engagement strategies for CJR and contribute to the conception and execution of a range of projects including podcasts, newsletters, and partnerships with the school’s centers. 
• Generate story ideas and match them with staff members or talented freelancers. 
• Create new features and content that will resonate with readers, advertisers, and other financial partners.  
• Maintain the highest ethical and publishing standards.  Develop, meet, and enforce critical deadlines and procedures.
• Recruit new writers for significant idea-driven pieces, and build a dynamic, talented pool of regular writers, photojournalists, and designers to contribute to CJR.
• Represent CJR on media broadcasts and within the Journalism School, helping to build the magazine’s brand and forge connections with others in the field, as needed.
• Supervise the work of fellows to ensure that standards and quality are kept at consistently high levels, by communicating of job and productivity expectations; planning, monitoring, and appraising job results. Maintains staff by recruiting, selecting, orienting, and training employees.
• Performs other related duties as needed.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree. 
• Minimum of 4-6 years of journalism experience.
• The Senior Editor should have:
  • Excellent news judgment and an insatiable interest in in journalism and the news industry.
  • A commitment to explaining (and defending) journalism at a time of economic and political turmoil, technological transformation, and growing threats to journalists.
  • A demonstrated ability to deliver quick, clean copy and help early-career develop their skills.
  • An empathetic collaborator who knows how to pursue great impact from a small team.

Preferred Qualifications

• Previous management experience is preferred.

Equal Opportunity Employer / Disability / Veteran

Columbia University is committed to the hiring of qualified local residents.