Editorial Content Manager – $33 – $38 an hour
The Institute for Independent Journalists is an education, professional development, and mutual support organization for independent journalists, focusing on Black, Indigenous and people of color. Our mission is financial and emotional sustainability for independent journalists of color, through community learning, innovation and advocacy.
We are a small, fully-remote team, made up entirely of independent contractors. The editorial content manager will work closely across our entire squad: Katherine, our founder and CEO; Ann Marie, our editorial director; Katie, our operations director; Hailey, our editorial assistant; and with our team of writers, editors, multimedia creators, and other contributors. Together, the team represents decades of independent journalism, communications and marketing experience and they love to experience satisfying moments of collaboration while creating high-impact programs for freelance journalists from all backgrounds.
About this role:
The IIJ seeks an ambitious, detail-oriented editorial content manager to join our team and directly support our CEO and team to present programs, recruit speakers and partners, design and edit content, and support the operations of the IIJ. This person will be part creator/maker and part director/planner, working to make sure IIJ messaging and programming are clearly defined and targeted to strengthen, grow and serve a robust network of independent journalists of color. We expect this role to take 10 to 15 hours a week, with more hours likely around larger programs. As a three-year old, growing organization, the IIJ seeks team members with the interest and capacity to take on more responsibility as we expand.
The editorial content manager will support IIJ signature programs such as:
- Training and informational webinars
- Annual conference
- Freelancer meetups at journalism events
- Business of freelancing course
- Workshops and presentations at industry conferences
About the successful candidate’s skills and experiences:
You:
- Understand the unique challenges faced by Black, Indigenous and people of color working in the media and journalism industry as independents and contractors
- Have relevant experience in news, media or similar that informs how you would serve IIJ’s core membership and audiences
- Thrive when working collaboratively but also having autonomy over your deliverables
- Relish seeing a project through from start to finish
- Rarely miss a deadline, whether short- or long-term
- Are able to juggle multiple moving projects while still seeing them all through to completion
- Can prioritize and reprioritize both urgent and important work across multiple threads, balancing progress against maintenance tasks with progress toward major deadlines.
- See “the bigger picture” across tangents, themes or timelines.
- Have the ability to finalize, polish and ship editorial content across mediums
- Are incredibly detail-oriented with a sharp memory
- Like to create or follow checklists
Plus you may also already be good at or building skills in one or more of these areas:
- Creating social graphics
- Managing and growing digital communities
- Hosting and facilitating online spaces and programs
- High level project management (ability to track, update and execute across several lanes at once)
Your past experiences might include:
- Working in a newsroom role, whether reporting, editing or something else
- Working in an operations or business side role for a news organization
- Freelancing or otherwise working as an independent journalist, in any medium
- Working for a journalism-adjacent or journalism-support organization
- Working for a membership-driven nonprofit
- Working in communications, marketing or similar field
How to apply:
- Instead of sending a cover letter, we ask that you respond to 3 short answer questions listed below.
- Please include 2-4 work samples that demonstrate your project management skills, your attention to detail, your clarity in communications, and/or your experience developing visual and social assets for editorial and marketing content. Examples might include (but are by no means limited to): one-pagers for experiments you’ve pitched; proposals for big ideas you’ve had; project docs for initiatives you’ve overseen; screenshots of Trello (or similar) cards and board you’ve designed/run/maintained; social analytics reports you’ve curated/designed and delivered; running meeting notes for a committee you oversee; issues of a newsletter you write and curate; a folder of social assets and language you prepared ahead of a major campaign or investigation, etc.
- If you used AI to prepare any of your application materials or responses, please disclose how and why you did so.
Short Answer Essay Questions
Rather than sending a cover letter with your materials, please answer the following questions. We prefer this method because it allows us to evaluate candidates more evenly and fairly, and we are able to learn more about how you consider your role and work. There is no target length, but most folks are able to respond to each prompt in a few paragraphs or roughly 200-500 words. Please, edit for clarity and succinctness, but overall, don’t stress about the length of your answers.
- Think back to a project you oversaw or worked on recently from start to finish. What were three challenges to reaching your deadlines or deliverables, and how would you tackle them differently or if you were leading a similar project and team today?
- You’ve been asked to create a campaign to raise independent journalists’ awareness of key principles and resources that impact their sustainability, using IIJ content, as well as external resources. How might you measure the success of such a campaign?
- You’re midway through a project that involves many moving pieces and realize a key team member or department isn’t going to hit their deadline, blocking the work for others. How can you navigate this situation fairly but firmly to ensure the work gets reassigned, rescoped, or otherwise completed? How might you work with that person or team to avoid this situation in the future?
Job Types: Part-time, Contract, Freelance