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Audience Engagement Specialist

Chicago, IL

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 77,000 members, hundreds of corporate sponsors and major donors.  In 2024, Chicago Public Media won 33 national and local awards including from the National Headliner Awards, National Association for Black Journalists, Public Media Journalists Association, Radio Television Digital News Association, Chicago Headline Club, Chicago Journalists Association, Media for a Just Society, and the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation. 

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.

DESCRIPTION

We are seeking a current Chicago Sun-Times News Guild employee interested in transferring to an Audience Engagement Specialist role to help grow, reach, and engage our digital audience with an emphasis on building deep relationships with our community, increasing trust, and enhancing loyalty. The ideal candidate should be passionate about journalism and how our reporting can fit into readers' lives to help them better understand the city, their neighbors and themselves. Audience Engagement Specialists should be dynamic, open to learning new tools and platforms, data-driven, and have applied knowledge of journalistic ethics and standards. 

The ideal candidate has a desire to connect Chicago to our award-winning, fact-based, and community centered journalism. We do this by collaborating with editors and reporters to:

  • Reformat reporting for platform specific audiences (e.g., Instagram carousels, aggregate articles, social explainers, newsletters).
  • Connect Chicago to the newsroom by identifying digital engagement opportunities (e.g., Reddit AMAs, TikTok, new platform guidance).
  • Cover trending, live, and breaking news on platforms, and in ways that are most useful to the public (e.g., live blog support, Google Trends review, SMS, App alerts).
  • Enhance in-platform story reach and audience engagement (e.g., headline support, SEO review, in-article modules, recirculation, programming fronts).
  • Surface story ideas, coverage angles and format considerations through audience listening (e.g., social listening, Google Trends, analytics platforms).

Candidates should have an interest and some understanding of online communities, platform dynamics, and shifting audience behaviors on emerging, established, and owned platforms. Audience duties consist of:

  • Curate home and section pages of the Sun-Times website to showcase the most relevant, timely, and popular content, using data and experimentation.
  • Edit and publish stories following the best practices of SEO, storytelling and audience engagement, optimizing content across multiple platforms to help target audiences find the content they want.
  • SEO and share lines that appropriately reflect our reporting and attract diverse audiences, prioritizing factual accuracy, demonstrating sound judgment and complying with best ethical practices. 
  • Conceptualize, plan and create original audience-focused callouts, posts (including Stories, Lives and Reels),  projects or campaigns across our platforms – which may include social media, news aggregators, third-party sites (social, Apple News, etc) or owned and operated channels (website, app or newsletters) – to develop our diverse target  audiences, working collaboratively with other colleagues and teams.  
  • Communicate effectively with other audience team members, journalists and colleagues and help CST reach its organizational goals by improving CST’s audience relationships, workplace culture, editorial excellence and impact. 
  • Solicit and respond to feedback from our readers on different platforms, helping to deepen our community relationships; demonstrate inclusivity of diverse experiences and perspectives. 
  • Consider data, community feedback and other research to develop deeper knowledge of our platforms and audiences; and experiment with different approaches to better reach, engage and serve target audiences, advising  and steering editorial efforts to better serve our community.
  • Identify trending and breaking news opportunities, working with editors and reporters to write or aggregate stories that build audiences based on those trends.
  • Manage Sun-Times’ social media channels, optimizing for sharing and engagement.
  • Create multimedia content to enhance daily news coverage (i.e., video, graphics, text images, live streams, slideshows, social media embeds) and breaking news alerts.
  • Compile and send emails and/or newsletters as needed to deepen engagement with our audiences.

 

SCHEDULE

The Audience Engagement Specialist must be willing to work four weekday evenings and one daytime weekend shift a week.

 

REQUIREMENTS

  • Bachelor’s degree in journalism or a related field, or comparable professional experience
  • Available to work flexible hours
  • Current Chicago Sun-Times employee in a News Guild-represented position

 

COMPENSATION

The expected pay range for this position is $58,047.85-$65,000 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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