Deputy Style & Standards Editor, Vox.Com

Job Description

The Vox style and standards team is the last line of defense before our work goes out to our audience. We're dedicated to ensuring all of our work meets the highest standards of clarity, accuracy, and fairness.

The deputy style and standards editor will work closely with the style and standards editor to ensure Vox content, including articles, videos, and podcasts, meets our high editorial standards of clarity, accuracy, inclusivity, and sensitivity. This editor will also weigh in on critical decisions about our content to ensure the work we publish reflects our goals of quality and ambition.

This person will be a people manager and directly manage members of the style and standards team, coordinating team workflows, workload, and processes. They will interact with a wide range of editors, reporters, and audio and video producers around the newsroom, so strong communication and interpersonal skills are essential. They will manage copyediting and fact-checking requests and deadlines. They'll also help the style and standards editor maintain our style and standards guides and keep the newsroom updated on the latest guidance.

WHO WE ARE

Vox candidly shepherds audiences through politics and policy, business and pop culture, food, science, and everything else that matters.

Vox is part of Vox Media, the leading modern media company. We guide our audience from discovery to obsession. We inspire essential conversations about what's now, what's next, and what's possible.

As a community of journalists and storytellers, business professionals, creators and technologists, we believe it is a moral and business imperative to amplify voices: to cultivate diversity, equity, and inclusion throughout our organization and media. This applies to our candidates, our teams, our storytelling, our creative work, and our platforms, products, and partnerships.

WHAT YOU'LL DO
• Use discretion and independent judgment to determine whether articles, videos, and podcasts meet our standard for publication:
• Read, evaluate, and edit all unpublished works at both the macro and micro level using the following criteria:
• Quality of reporting, clarity, accuracy, and strength of argument
• Adherence to best practices with regard to sensitive topics, legal liability, and inflammatory language
• Proper Vox style, spelling, and grammar
• When articles do not meet this standard, remove them from the publication queue; communicate the problems to writers and editors along with ideal solutions; work with both to bring content up to standards before rescheduling
• Be instrumental in setting and enforcing publishing standards:
• Identify issues or inconsistencies and discuss with the style and standards editor to determine a solution. Communicate those issues - and our stylistic solution - to the staff.
• Identify articles or elements of content (such as graphics) that need legal review, sensitivity reads, or fact-checking and work with reporters, graphics team, and others as needed to ensure they meet Vox standards for accuracy and clarity

Serve as first or second read on priority pieces, as needed
• Directly manage members of the style and standards team, helping them learn new skills, and guiding their professional development
• Manage workflows and workload, and help set copy deadlines for the newsroom
• Hire, manage, and train freelancers
• Address and escalate issues and needs to the style and standards editor
• Advocate for style and standards team's needs within the larger newsroom
• Copy edit and fact-check text, audio, and video pieces as needed
• Help with daily copy load and managing copy flow, top-edit tricky pieces, check for errors or usage issues, ensure consistency
• Fact-check pieces as necessary
• Help maintain the Vox style and standards guides
• Update the style guide with new language guidance and communicate changes to the newsroom
• Write and update portions of the standards guide, which lays out Vox's best practices for transparency, accuracy, and clarity in reporting

WHO YOU ARE
• At least five years of experience in copy editing and fact-checking, preferably for a digital-first news organization
• A commitment to the highest journalistic standards of accuracy, clarity, and sensitivity/inclusivity
• The ability to work quickly and collaboratively under tight deadlines amid a busy news environment
• An eagle eye for mistakes in grammar, spelling, and punctuation, plus experience with fact-checking best practices
• Experience managing direct reports strongly preferred

If you think you have what it takes, but don't meet every single point in our job posting, please apply with a cover letter to let us know how you believe you can bring your unique skills to the Vox Media team or get in touch! We've hired chefs who became editors, DJs who became UX designers, and sommeliers who became writers.

WHERE YOU'LL WORK

This job is remote.

PAY TRANSPARENCY

The salary range listed below represents the minimum and maximum base pay for this position at the time of this posting. Final salary offered to the candidate selected for the position will be based on factors including but not limited to the candidate's skills and experience.

Pay Range

$81,000 — $95,000 USD

Jobcode: Reference SBJ-reeo05-18-217-182-130-42 in your application.