Supervising Editor / Supervising Senior Editor, Planet Money

Job Description

OVERVIEW

Across our organization, we're building a workplace where collaboration is essential, diverse voices are heard, and inclusion is the key to our success.

JOB SUMMARY

Fairness, wealth, well-being, inequality, power, all of it and more. What a time to cover the economy! Capitalism itself is coming under question. Basic assumptions about economics are falling away. We're facing a profound moment of economic crisis, with deep human suffering, disparate impacts along racial and ethnic lines, all while wealth and innovation are soaring. It's complicated. It's confusing. It's a lot. Does that energize you?

We need someone with a steady hand, analytical mind, creative instincts and caring heart to help us chart our course through this moment in American history. Someone able to make tough decisions, working with each reporter/producer to do their best work. Millions of people are counting on us.

We're an extremely collaborative and tight-knit team with broad creative freedom to tell stories however we can. Sometimes it's a character narrative, other times it's field reporting or an expert interview, or trying things for ourselves, like buying 1,000 barrels of oil or a load of Christmas trees. Humor, antics, empathy, pathos, metaphor, or even quizzes or song, we deploy whatever tools we need to best explain, engage and entertain.

We're looking for two supervising senior editors who can juggle all of that, with news instincts, narrative audio chops and leadership experience. Someone who we can spot stories, sharpen scripts and set a coverage agenda in partnership with the rest of us; offer constructive, rigorous, fair feedback with empathy and kindness; and push our staff to grow. If all of that is interesting to you, read on.

RESPONSIBILITIES
• Manage some (4 or 5) of the talented, experienced reporters and producers.

As part of the leadership of this consensus-driven team, set the editorial agenda in collaboration with hosts and other editorial staff, then empower, motivate and encourage staff to achieve goals, creatively removing obstacles along the way.
• Hiring, as needed, the next round of world class audio storytellers
• Edit episodes, quickly, decisively, with insight, rigor and kindness
• Be ambitious, thinking up large-scale projects for the team to tackle collaboratively
• Ensure every episode meets our high standards for craft, journalism, and tone and substance
• Keep the show from sounding boring, predictable, generic
• Have tons of ideas
• Know how to pluck news from unexpected sources, or from business or trade press, or the 13th paragraph of a magazine article and turn it into a narrative the general public can't help but listen to
• Approving or rejecting story pitches from staff and freelancers, along with other editorial staff, and provide clear reasons for your choices
• Offer feedback at the macro and micro levels: on story conception and framing as well as fine tuning scripts
• Re-writing stories along with hosts, including restructuring arcs, sharpening narration, punching up jokes, trimming episodes to time and whatever else is needed
• Thinking ahead with reporters about getting that dream tape with just the right question, or by being in just the right place
• Participating in our collaborative group edit process
• Offering direct, critical feedback with kindness, consideration, collegiality
• Embody the team values of kindness, consideration, empathy, inclusivity, diversity, and equity.
• Keeping it fun
• Thinking big. Really big. Pushing the ambition of the team on all fronts is key, innovating in craft, format, journalism, narrative, insight, all of it.

This is a dream job for the right person. Is that you?

Who should apply?
• You. If …
• You can take a messy idea and sculpt it into a clear structure.
• You do not shy away from complicated ideas or topics.
• You are an analytical thinker with an open mind
• You find characters and stories everywhere.
• You get bored with traditional business coverage
• Ideally, you are comfortable with the complexity of economics and finance,
• But at the same time, you have other interests and enjoy infusing those into your work too
• Or you do not yet see the world through an economics lens, but you are econ-curious and bring a sense of wonder to questions regarding money, and value, and financial power.
• You like talking about things like arcs and stakes and pacing and agents.
• You know how to make an audience feel something.
• You have solid news judgment
• You often ask, ''Why should I care?''
• You are editing this post right now
• You are skeptical, but still idealistic. Serious but funny. Warm but also fierce when it is called for.
• You can explain your decisions and choices and taste to staff in a way that they'll learn from, even if they don't agree with your call
• You want to help a talented bunch of reporters and producers get better at what they do.
• You want to help us reach new audiences that are more representative of America and the world.

QUALIFICATIONS

EDUCATION: Formal education is not what matters to us. Though if you have studied economics or business, or work experience in those fields, please include that in your application.

REQUIRED SKILLS
• Experience leading a team of journalists, having tough conversations with empathy and kindness, aiding in the professional development of junior staff, motivating a team, maintaining high morale, infusing the values of diversity, equity, inclusion and creativity into every aspect of the editorial process.
• Narrative audio journalism experience
• 7+ years experience explaining complicated topics to audiences, as a journalist, writer, teacher or other setting.
• 7+ years experience in a deadline news environment (though this job is NOT itself a news job)
• 5+ Experience editing the work of others
• Demonstrated experience innovating in storytelling with examples you can point to

PREFERRED SKILLS
• Audio production skills
• Expertise in business and economics

HOW TO APPLY

All applications must include a resume and cover letter to be considered.

Please incorporate the following into your application:
• Tell us how you'd change Planet Money for the better. What should we do more of? What should we stop doing? How would you make that happen?
• Include links to work you've edited and tell us about how your editing changed or improved that work.
• Include a pitch for a story explaining something complicated in an unexpectedly entertaining way. It does not have to be an economic idea for this application. Whatever topic YOU know well will work fine. We just want to see how you think and approach storytelling.

Jobcode: Reference SBJ-gm57ov-3-145-7-187-42 in your application.