• 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: $75,000 - $80,000

Position Summary

Reporting to the Editor in Chief, the Staff Editor will be an active thought partner at Columbia Journalism Review (CJR), across the digital magazine, newsletter, and podcast. Our audience includes journalists, educators, policy makers, and anyone who cares about the role of the press in upholding democracy. 

The Staff Editor has several key responsibilities, chief among them to conceive, assign, and edit coverage of journalism-related news and feature stories. 

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. This person must excel at coaching writers 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 Staff 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 Staff 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 edit the three fellows, who work during the academic year and are graduates of the Columbia Journalism School, as well as the staff writer.

Responsibilities

• Edit stories for the CJR website, newsletter, and other projects, including by generating story ideas and matching them with staff members or talented freelancers.
  • This coverage should advance CJR’s visibility and impact as the leading forum for reporting and analysis about changing media business models, international journalism, threats to press freedom, news publishing and tech, and other related subjects.  
• Edit the work of the three fellows and staff writer to ensure that standards and quality are kept at consistently high levels, by communicating job and productivity expectations; planning, mentoring, monitoring, and appraising results.
• Recruit new contributors and build a dynamic, talented pool of freelancers for CJR.
• Participate in and contribute to staff meetings, idea generation, and schedule planning, and other project development.
• Coordinate with fellow editors, colleagues, and contributors through respectful, collaborative communication.
• Maintain the highest ethical and publishing standards.
• Develop, meet, and enforce deadlines.
• Become a fluent and capable user of our online publishing system and newsletter platform.
• Develop innovative outreach and engagement strategies for CJR and contribute to the conception and execution of new projects, special issues, and partnerships with the school’s centers.
• Performs other related duties as needed.

Minimum Qualifications

• Education:  Bachelor’s degree. 
• Experience: Minimum of 3-5 years of journalism experience.
• Other:
  • `The Staff Editor should have:
    • Excellent news judgment and an insatiable interest 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 journalists develop their skills.
    • An empathetic collaborator who knows how to derive great impact from a small team.

Equal Opportunity Employer / Disability / Veteran

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