Service Updates Editor

About The Philadelphia Inquirer, PBC

Since 1829, The Philadelphia Inquirer has been "asking on behalf of the people" by providing essential journalism for the diverse communities of the Philadelphia region. The Inquirer, a for-profit public benefit corporation owned by the non-profit Lenfest Institute, produces Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism that changes lives and leads to lasting reforms. Its multiple brand platforms - including newspapers, Inquirer.com, e-Editions, apps, newsletters, and live events - reach a growing audience of more than 10 million people a month. "In a free state, there should always be an inquirer asking on behalf of the people: Why? Why? Why?" - John Norvell, Inquirer co-founder

Job Purpose/Summary

We're seeking an Editor to help manage, update and improve our evergreen service content. You should know how to spot trends and solve readers' problems, enjoy experimentation and be able to build on lessons learned, and embrace the idea that journalism should be more accessible, engaging and useful.

The Service Updates Editor will work with our Service Editor and Senior Service Editor to manage our evergreen service project. Our evergreen service mandate is to create lasting resources that deepen our readers' connection to Philly, solve their problems, and make their lives better. That can mean helping people find great stuff to do, know what to do if they get called for jury duty, find affordable childcare, or make Irish Potatoes.

This role will be focused on identifying guides and topics that we should update and improve. That means making changes to live content both proactively and reactively. We will always be trying to find ways to make content better than it was, both because it's more useful to the reader, and more inclusive and representative of our diverse city.

You will be directly involved in our content planning process, collaborating to map out content priorities, as well as building and managing a stable of freelance writers and researchers.

Because our work spans a wide range of subject matter, you are comfortable working with information you're not expert in and making it make sense to readers. You know both with our direct competitors in the market, and how great evergreen service content works. You're adept at writing clean, clear, and simple prose that breaks down sometimes complex information well, and finding ways to produce those stories to make them easy for readers to use and understand. And you are comfortable working with product teams to help improve how our stories appear on our site.

You're an editor who relishes writer development, is comfortable playing with voice, and wants to push the boundaries on story concepts and forms. You're meticulous and creative, helping us ambitiously push how our newsroom can be more useful to our region.

Core duties

• Update stories to make them more accurate, accessible, inclusive, and useful
• Help manage and maintain service inventory and updates calendar for everything we publish
• Pitch, write, and edit stories that are sometimes outside of your areas of expertise, as necessary
• Write reported stories and analysis as needed, and curate content from other outlets and social media
• Line-edit and produce stories
• Work with service editor, digital producers and product teams to improve our story forms and presentation
• Work with photo and video teams to make our content more media-rich and engaging
• Work with freelance writers and fact checkers
• Help build stable of freelance experts
• Collaborate with other reporters, editors, and desks in the newsroom
• Work in our content management system to edit stories, following style and formatting best practices
• Stay up to date on best in show examples from other service content sites

Qualifications

• A minimum of two years journalism experience, including a strong service journalism background
• A bachelor's degree, or equivalent professional experience
• Strong writing and editing skills
• Adept at using social media for discovery, research and distribution
• Ability to use digital metrics to set goals, evaluate progress and inform adjustments
• Exceptional collaboration and communication skills
• Track record of effectively managing complex projects and/or stories
• A solid grounding in SEO/Google ranking guidelines and best practices
• Skills in brainstorming, planning, and coordinating multimedia storytelling
• Creativity in problem-solving

Other Things To Know

We know not everyone reading this will fit exactly what we've described. We encourage everyone to apply who shares our passion for indispensable journalism and our drive to create a sustainable business model to support it. As an equal opportunity employer, The Inquirer is committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive culture, and we especially encourage members of underrepresented communities to submit an application, including women, people of color, veterans, LGBTQ+ people, and individuals with disabilities.

We are an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Other details

• Pay Type Salary

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