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Editor in Chief, Chicago Public Media

Chicago, IL (Hybrid workplace)

About Chicago Public Media

Home to WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Public Media is the largest local non-profit news organization in the country. WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times serve more than 2 million people weekly across broadcast, print, and digital platforms. As a mission-driven organization, we aspire to become the essential and most trusted news source that Chicago turns to each day for understanding the people, events, and ideas that shape our community.

WBEZ is home to local and national news programming as well as a growing portfolio of popular podcasts. WBEZ serves the community with fact-based, objective news and information, and its award-winning journalists ask tough questions, dig deep for answers and expose truths that spark change and foster understanding. WBEZ is supported by more than 86,000 members, hundreds of corporate sponsors and major donors. In 2022, WBEZ received more than 20 awards for its journalism, including two prestigious National Edward R. Murrow Awards.

Chicago Sun-Times is Chicago’s oldest continuously published daily newspaper serving Chicago and is known for its hard-hitting investigative reporting, in-depth political coverage, timely behind-the-scenes sports analysis, and insightful entertainment and cultural coverage. Chicago Sun-Times is the winner of eight Pulitzer Prizes and countless other awards.  In recent years, the Sun-Times has focused on a digital transformation to deliver its news and content to a growing digital audience. Most recently, the Sun-Times dropped the paywall on suntimes.com to expand access to its journalism, and shifted to a community-funded digital membership program supported by voluntary member donations. 

Chicago Public Media believes independent journalism is essential to a well-functioning democracy and access to fact-based, objective news and information is a right of every citizen. We serve the public interest by creating diverse, compelling content that informs, inspires, and enriches. We connect diverse audiences and help them make a difference in the community, the region and the world.  And, we employ 300+ staff who want to belong to an organization that inspires, supports, and challenges them to do their best work.

For more information, please see the Chicago Public Media Annual Report.

 

The Opportunity

WBEZ is looking for an outstanding Editor-in-Chief to lead a new era of journalistic impact and innovation in the Chicago region.

The Editor in Chief will be our single leader intently concerned about what our coverage needs to be today, this week, this month, and in the future. The Editor-in-Chief oversees the overall editorial direction, content strategy, and standards to ensure journalistic integrity across multiple platforms, including digital, broadcast, print and social media .  This role combines leadership, creative vision, and managerial skills to ensure high-quality content delivery to meet the needs of our diverse audience and to drive audience engagement.

We’re looking for a big-picture thinker who is skilled at defining and articulating a compelling vision for editorial impact and public service journalism in the Chicago region. Our Editor in Chief will translate an editorial vision and strategy into clear objectives, structures and workflows that create effective outcomes.

 

General Responsibilities

The Editor in Chief will take responsibility for our editorial team during a critical moment. This involves integration of the WBEZ and Sun-Times newsrooms, including completing a large  reorg, putting people in the right roles, creating news processes, workflows and training needed to make it work, troubleshooting and making adjustments as needed. Other key responsibilities:

Editorial Strategy & Planning

  • Drive the daily news agenda in Chicago, helping journalists and residents consistently advance the public conversation with depth, context and understanding
  • Translate an editorial vision and strategy into clear objectives, systems, structures, and workflows that help staff do their work effectively and sustainably
  • Establish content themes, calendars, and long-term goals.
  • Ensure content aligns with audience needs, industry trends, and brand objectives.

Content Oversight

  • Push a strong, daily editorial theory that the entire newsroom understands regarding our editorial priorities.
  • Clearly define goals and success metrics and hold all members of the team accountable for results and impact
  • Oversee the creation, editing, and publishing of content across all platforms.
  • Maintain high journalistic standards, ensuring compliance with ethical guidelines.
  • Foster an environment that supports outstanding audio reporting and programming by embracing techniques, workflows and standards that ensure excellence & timeliness

Team Leadership

  • Build the highest performing team we can, including developing and managing our staff, clearly setting expectations and feedback mechanisms to ensure employees  know where they stand regarding performance. This includes cultivating new skills on the team by training, hiring and investing where needed.
  • Foster a collaborative and productive work environment where employees can be their authentic selves and show up to do their best work.
  • Have the ability to recruit, hire and retain outstanding talent, including a passion for creating pathways for continuous learning and professional development among staff
  • Be an influential leader with the ability to inspire the team to achieve ambitious results while also driving accountability
  • Demonstrate a commitment to, and a track record of accomplishment in, advancing the work of diversity, equity, inclusion as a leaderHave experience successfully leading in a union context.
  • Explore a variety of platforms with the intent to develop relationships with talent we could potentially hire, reaching out to national talent to make a play, and, when necessary, recognizing when to cut ties. 
  • Strategically prioritize staff’s work among our many competing initiatives to ensure we’re focusing our resources where they can be most impactful.
  • Center our mission of informing all Chicagoans to support a better region in everything we do. 

Collaboration & Communication

  • Help instill a collaborative culture of innovation, inclusion and transparency that set employees up for success and creates an environment where everyone can contribute their best ideas and work.
  • Build relationships with contributors, freelancers, and industry experts. 
  • Oversee the development of fostering much deeper ties to our community and work with leadership to determine the best ways for Chicago Public Media to reclaim the conversation and convening journalism ceded to social media platforms. 
  • Find ways to foster a deeper connection to our city and region, and the need to adjust our journalism accordingly.
  • Be the executive partner across the entire organization to editorial – from exploring AI solutions for the newsroom; alerting marketing and membership of our biggest investigative work and ensuring we’re firing up all the engines; working with our analytics and revenue teams to set hard goals for our editors and holding them to account if we’re not seeing improvements every quarter.

Content Performance & Analytics

  • Monitor audience engagement, web traffic, and content performance metrics.
  • Use data insights to refine editorial strategies and improve content quality.
  • Work closely with: our analytics team to understand what our different audiences need;, our business and finance teams to understand what we can support; and the platform leaders to determine what we need to cover, why, where and how. 
  • Lead definitive, unique coverage of the most important topics in Chicago, and push our teams when we’re not living up to our competitors (which is everyone plus bots). 

Budget & Resource Management

  • Oversee the editorial budget, allocating resources effectively.
  • Manage contracts with freelance writers, photographers, and vendors.

Crisis Management & Legal Compliance

  • Address content-related issues, corrections, or disputes.
  • Ensure all published material adheres to legal and ethical standards.

 

Qualifications

The ideal candidate will have the following professional and personal qualities, skills and experience:

  • 20+ years as a leader in a highly accomplished, multi-platform newsroom (mid- to large- sized newsroom – 50+ people).
  • Outstanding news judgment and a significant record of accomplishment in leading journalists to produce work of tremendous distinction and community impact.
  • Significant digital editorial leadership experience.
  • Excellent writing, editing, communication and organizational skills.
  • Skilled at juggling a variety of daily tasks with ease and precision, with a demonstrated expertise in effective project management.
  • Experience driving and measuring journalistic impact using a variety of qualitative and quantitative metrics to chart progress and to make informed decisions.
  • Strong relationship builder, coach and naturally collaborative leader with experience building successful partnerships within and beyond the organization. 

 

Education

BA Degree or equivalent 

 

Compensation

The expected pay range for this position is $210,000 to $260,000 per ANNUM.

Chicago Public Media provides pay ranges representing its good faith estimate of what the organization reasonably expects to pay for a position.  The pay offered to a selected candidate will be determined based on factors such as (but not limited to the scope and responsibilities of the position, the qualifications of the selected candidate, departmental budget availability, internal equity, geographical location, and external market pay for comparable jobs.

 

Working at Chicago Public Media

At Chicago Public Media, we care deeply about our employees as we know attracting, developing, and growing talent is key to our success and enhancing our impact.  

Our culture is one where collaboration, diversity of ideas, and innovation are encouraged.  We value colleagues who will enhance our culture by bringing new ideas, divergent experiences, and talents to our dynamic workplace.

At Chicago Public Media we believe dedication to a great workplace includes supporting our employees and their families. As a result, we provide a broad and generous benefits package for employees at hire and in the years to come.

Our benefits include a competitive salary and benefits package which includes medical, dental, vision, vacation, holidays, life insurance, disability coverage, retirement savings, and a commuter benefits plan.

Chicago Public Media is an Equal Opportunity Employer and we actively seek and welcome people from all backgrounds, orientations, and life experiences to join our team.

 

The essential functions described above are not all-inclusive and are not intended to create any contractual or other legal commitment. Chicago Public Media may change the content or format of this job at any time in its sole and exclusive discretion without notice.

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