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Sr. Director, Enterprise and Investigations

The Arizona Republic/azcentral.com, part of the USA TODAY NETWORK, is looking for a results-driven editor with a passion for accountability reporting, data-driven investigations and narrative storytelling.

This is a senior-level position in charge of our newsroom's most ambitious journalism. This editor guides longform enterprise and multipart investigations that change lives, influence policy and protect democracy.

We are committed to reflecting our community and looking for candidates who are eager to lead work by, about and for people from underrepresented backgrounds. If you are an editor who shares this commitment and thrives in a collaborative environment this is a great opportunity.

Job details:

The successful candidate will have a track record of high-impact accountability journalism, with a readiness to conceive of and execute ambitious projects. Foreign language skills, a background in public records access and familiarity with data analysis would all be a plus. But this is most important: a core familiarity with leading complex work, building collaborative teams and producing stories in innovative ways on multiple platforms.

This editor must also play a newsroom leadership role, collaborating with other senior managers and any other team across the newsroom. The role may require developing or piloting new journalism initiatives or teams, identifying and working with partner organizations, or developing and maintaining funding for the newsroom. This editor also must help formulate newsroom strategies and implement long-term team strategies to support our business model. To put the range into perspective: This editor is ready to write everything from legally vetted headlines to grant proposals.

This director oversees editors and teams covering Indigenous communities, climate change and the environment, computational reporting and data visualization, narrative and longform storytelling, and groundbreaking public service journalism that exposes corruption and fraud and holds the powerful to account.

The director in this role has great news sense, is innovative and experimental, loves to coach others and sets high standards. The editor serves as a member of the senior newsroom management team, reports to the executive editor and collaborates across the newsroom and USA TODAY Network on projects of regional and national scope.

Our newsroom led the 2017 examination of Trump's border wall that won the Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting. Since then, the investigative, topic and data reporters, on their own and in collaborations, have been honored by the Goldsmith, Polk, Headliner, Philip Meyer, New America, Feddie, Murrow, Emmy and Eppy awards and the Victor McElheny award from MIT.

Our reporters' work has direct impact. Separate investigative reports by The Republic in the last year led to the shutdown of one state regulatory agency and the firing of the entire membership of another regulatory board. New legislation is moving through our statehouse now, which would help eliminate a rash of sex assaults our team identified. Months after our special report on how federal land policies failed to protect Indigenous sacred sites, the Biden administration announced a new collaborative land policy to help fix the problem.

This progress happens because we're a newsroom that fights for good. We fought a public-records lawsuit against the state over coronavirus data. We fought the state Department of Public Safety after officials there stonewalled years' worth of public records requests (and we prevailed, winning a massive database they had once claimed didn't exist, plus a five-figure check). Our case is in the Arizona Supreme Court in a fight to obtain public records about the audit of presidential votes overseen by Arizona's Senate and its subcontractor, Cyber Ninjas.

We accessed and published secret, hate-filled internet postings by right-wing activists who were working to take over leadership positions within state party governance. We fought the Phoenix Police Department to obtain and analyze never-before-seen records about police brutality. We led an analysis that revealed how the U.S. Forest Service lets water users siphon away the headwaters of the American West even as the agency's own data shows its water supplies are in decline.

Our newsroom brings authority and focus on key topics in the Southwest, including immigration and diverse communities, the environment and climate change, and the shifting political landscape in a key swing state. We're one of the largest newsrooms in the USA TODAY Network, where more than 200 newsrooms nationwide can collaborate and contribute to national projects.

Responsibilities:

• Choose ambitious investigative targets on issues of great public importance and with potential for major social, political and policy impact Mentor and guide teams of editors and reporters as they pursue documents, data and human sources to produce original, high-impact findings.
• Collaborate with other editors, reporters, designers and producers at The Republic and across the USA TODAY Network to deliver groundbreaking stories.
• Drive innovative storytelling in all formats, from written word to video, audio and graphics.
• Serve as a liaison with corporate and local legal counsel and take responsibility for addressing the legal challenges involved in our most significant work.
• Identify and address training needs of individuals and groups. Strategize with audience teams to maximize the reach and impact of stories.
• Cultivate a culture of respect and teamwork and an ethic of reporting with accuracy, fairness, humanity and compassion.
• Support and mentor reporting efforts across the newsroom.

Requirements:

• Bachelor's or master's degree in journalism or related field or an equivalent combination of education and experience.

• 10 years of professional and/or media management experience.
• Command of media law and principles of ethical conduct.
• Must embrace peer-to-peer training, as both a teacher and student. Strong news judgment and editing skills.
• Comfortable in fluid, fast-breaking, stressful situations.
• A passion for empathetic, compassionate storytelling.
• Attention to detail and accuracy.
• Able to build a coverage strategy using analytics and innovation.
• Experience with advanced storytelling techniques on multiple platforms. Exceptional planning and organizational skills.
• Self-motivation and self-direction.
• Advanced grasp of journalism skills (reporting, editing, writing, spelling, grammar, style, metrics, social media and SEO).
• Able to multi-task and excel under intense deadline pressure in a rapidly changing environment.
• Employment is contingent on passing a post-offer pre-employment background check.

Application Instructions:

We are eager to learn more about you and how you fit this role. When you apply, don't limit your upload to a resume; show us what you've done. To do so, put together a single document file that includes the following, in this order:

1. Your resume - one to two pages.
2. A cover letter that outlines how you would approach the job and outlines your vision for leading project teams and serving a diverse community.
3. Links to at least 3-5 online samples of major investigative pieces with a narrative of how you led or contributed.

It is important that these items be assembled into a single document and uploaded in PDF format. Completing these steps will ensure that your application receives the highest consideration.

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Gannett Co., Inc. is a proud equal opportunity employer committed to building and maintaining a diverse workforce. As such, we will consider all qualified applicants for employment and do not discriminate in connection with employment decisions on the basis of an applicant or employee's race, color, national origin, ethnicity, ancestry, citizenship status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, religion, age, marital status, personal appearance (including height and weight), sexual orientation, family responsibilities, physical or mental disability, medical condition, pregnancy status (including childbirth, breastfeeding or related medical conditions), education, genetic characteristics or information, political affiliation, military or veteran status or other classifications protected by applicable federal, state and local laws in the jurisdictions where Gannett employs employees. In addition, Gannett Co., Inc. will provide applicants who require a reasonable accommodation, as a result of an applicant's disability or religion, to complete this employment application and/or any other process in connection with an individuals' application for employment with Gannett Co., Inc. Applicants who require such accommodation should contact Gannett Co., Inc.'s Recruitment Department at [email protected].

Other details

• Job Family Content Management
• Job Function Consumer
• Pay Type Salary
• Required Education Equivalent Experience

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