Assistant Features Editor

This is a Full Time Job

The Houston Chronicle is seeking an Assistant Features Editor who will serve as a leader in the Features Department. The ideal candidate is a forward-looking journalist who not only understands the cadence, quality and various formats of stories needed to inform and delight readers, but who also works in collaboration with other editors to make sure that our content is optimized for SEO; gets distributed through social media and in newsletters; and employs, when necessary, the resources of the Chronicle's award-winning visual and data visualization teams.

The Houston Chronicle, an award-winning newsroom in the largest city in Texas, is seeking a dynamic, ambitious, innovative leader to join our Features Department. They will ensure our journalists are meeting readers' needs through breaking news, utility- and service-oriented content, as well as through ambitious enterprise reporting that engages readers in a variety of products and platforms.

What will you do?
• Push fascinating, timely and innovative storytelling-and be adept at leading the staff in producing both entertaining quick hits and high-impact enterprise.

• Analyze and interpret metrics and use them to inform coverage decisions in real-time and long-term

• Oversee a team of talented reporters who cover medical news, health, wellness, lifestyle and culture. A demonstrated familiarity or understanding of those topics is a must.

• Work collaboratively with editors, other reporters, photographers, the audience team and the ''DevHub'' data visualization team to tell impactful stories across platforms that engage and retain local subscribers and other readers

• Conceptualize and assign stories aimed at growing digital subscriptions by identifying trending or important stories through social media, analytics or otherwise

• Edit and oversee editors who guide staffers through the reporting process and edits their work with excellent command of grammar, usage and AP style

What will it take to be successful?

Familiarity with SEO, social media and other audience best practices are a must, as are an understanding of how to coach and develop reporters to write engaging stories. The Chronicle will be moving to Airtable as its news budgeting system before the year is out, so experience with that planning tool or a similar one is preferred, but not required.
• Demonstrated experience managing newsroom personnel and producing high-quality news and enterprise journalism across digital and print platforms • • Demonstrated success working in a deadline-driven environment

• Understanding or interest in health and wellness, lifestyle and culture/diverse communities as areas of coverage.

• Highly organized and detail-oriented with a proven ability to effectively juggle multiple tasks

• Minimum 3-5 years of experience as an editor

• Ability to mentor editors and journalists

• Understanding of social media landscape and SEO

• Command of what constitutes breaking and trending news

The Houston Chronicle, recognized for its Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism, serves its 2.3 million residents with content and marketing solutions across one of Houston's largest websites - HoustonChronicle.com and Chron.com, along with our magazine, television and newspaper brands. Our mission is to spark conversations that inspire action to create a better Houston. All our content and the innovative business solutions we provide invite Houstonians to join conversations about a community we've been committed to covering and helping prosper for more than 120 years. The community we all call home.

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