Title: Director of Audience, The Dallas Morning News
Opening Statement: The Dallas Morning News is looking for a transformative leader to power the strategy and growth of our audience team as the newsroom strives to deepen its engagement with the community.
Job description: The Director of Audience will play a key role in The Dallas Morning News’ efforts to innovate and experiment with new ways to attract readers and drive digital subscriptions. This leader also will develop strategies for democratizing audience analytics in the newsroom and for providing regular training to our journalists.
The Director of Audience will help set and manage audience goals for every team in the newsroom and work closely with Hearst Newspapers’ editorial leadership. This person should be a natural collaborator and a strong partner to other senior leaders on projects and initiatives.
A significant track record in growing audience and developing innovative strategies is a must, as is the ability to draw out the best in people you work with. Strong change management skills are essential. We are seeking a leader who is cool under pressure, comfortable with continuous deadlines, organized, enthusiastic, compassionate and creative.
As part of the newsroom’s senior leadership team, this leader will be central to executing newsroom priorities as well as developing key strategic efforts.
What you’ll do
- Develop and implement core strategies and goals for audience engagement
- Democratize audience analytics across the newsroom using training, coaching and mentoring
- Lead efforts to analyze the performance of our journalism, understand our audience and improve engagement
- Help set and manage audience goals for newsroom teams
- Take a hands-on approach to breaking news across digital platforms
- Build strong relationships with staffers and foster their growth and development
- Display exceptional news judgment with the ability to recognize the digital potential of stories that will resonate with our audience
- Work with editors to shape coverage that deepens engagement with our digital audience
- Provide day-to-day leadership and supervision to assigned staff, ensuring operational goals and objectives are met effectively and efficiently
- Handle all aspects of employee management, including recruitment, interviewing, selection, onboarding and retention
- Conduct regular performance evaluations; provides constructive feedback and coaching to support employee development and accountability
- Administer progressive discipline and counseling as needed, in alignment with company policies and procedures
- Oversee scheduling, workload distribution, and delegation of responsibilities to ensure balanced team performance and productivity
What it takes
- Bachelor’s degree in journalism or a related field
- 5 years or more of audience engagement experience
- Ability to turn audience data into actionable strategies for driving subscriptions and expanding our reach
- Deep understanding of SEO, audience analytics and social media
- Ability to innovate and quickly iterate as we seek to develop new strategies for engaging audiences
- Strong news judgment and a commitment to accuracy
- Track record of adapting quickly and moving at the speed of news
- Strong communication and collaboration skills
About The Dallas Morning News
Since 1885, The Dallas Morning News (www.dallasnews.com) has been North Texas’ trusted source for credible, independent journalism — reporting with accuracy, fairness and integrity. Each week, we reach more than 4 million people across print, digital, and social platforms, covering the stories that shape life in Dallas and across the state. From politics and public policy to business, culture and sports, our mission is to inform, engage and reflect the diverse communities we serve.
Our staff works in the office at least three days a week. The Dallas Morning News believes a collaborative and inclusive work environment is essential to a thriving workplace. We support one another as we produce revelatory work with our community in mind. We are in search of a diverse group of candidates.
About Hearst Newspapers:
With 2,500 employees across the nation, Hearst Newspapers (HNP) represents a network of 28 daily and 50 weekly publications, including the Austin American-Statesman, Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Express-News, San Francisco Chronicle and Times Union (Albany). Our portfolio also includes several top digital-only news and lifestyle sites such as Chron., CT Insider, MySA and SFGATE, along with marketing services businesses like Medium Giant and entertainment brands such as King Features Syndicate.
At HNP, we’re investing in new and innovative ways to tell stories — growing newsrooms, diversifying tools and evolving platforms — to support the millions of people who trust us each month to help them make decisions, take action and be inspired.
Be a part of something bigger – Your Headline Awaits.
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Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree in journalism or a related field
- 5 years or more of audience engagement experience
- Track record of growing audience and developing innovative engagement strategies
- Ability to turn audience data into actionable strategies for driving subscriptions
- Deep understanding of SEO, audience analytics and social media
- Strong change management skills and ability to innovate and iterate quickly
- Strong news judgment and commitment to accuracy
- Strong communication, collaboration, coaching and mentoring skills
Hearst Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Hearst and has not been reviewed or approved by Hearst.
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Healthcare Strength — Healthcare coverage is described as comprehensive, including medical plan choice, full in-network preventive coverage, dental and vision, telemedicine, prescription coverage, and fertility resources. Mental-health resources and other wellbeing services (e.g., therapy sessions, crisis support, virtual physical therapy, and chronic-condition programs) further strengthen the health offering.
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Retirement Support — Retirement support is positioned as meaningful through a 401(k) plan with company matching and Hearst covering plan administration fees. Performance bonuses are also noted as available in some roles, adding an additional rewards component beyond base pay.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Time-off benefits include paid holidays, paid sick days, and vacation time with a commonly cited annual range, alongside paid parental leave and family medical leave. A remote work program and flexibility signals are also included as part of the overall rewards experience.
Hearst Insights
What We Do
Hearst is a leading global, diversified media, information and services company with more than 360 businesses. Its major interests include ownership in cable television networks such as A&E, HISTORY, Lifetime and ESPN; global financial services leader Fitch Group; Hearst Health, a group of medical information and services businesses; transportation assets including CAMP Systems International, a major provider of software-as-a-service solutions for managing maintenance of jets and helicopters; 33 television stations such as WCVB-TV in Boston and KCRA-TV in Sacramento, California, which reach a combined 19 percent of U.S. viewers; newspapers such as the Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle and Times Union (Albany, New York); more than 300 magazines around the world, including Cosmopolitan, ELLE, Men's Health and Car and Driver, and digital services businesses such as iCrossing and KUBRA; and investments in emerging digital entertainment companies such as Complex Networks.
