Metro Editor, Chron

Full Time Job
Metro Editor, Chron.com

Chron is seeking a Metro Editor to guide our expanding coverage of Houston news as well as its diverse cultures, changing neighborhoods and most compelling characters. The person in this role will help Chron’s leadership develop a strategic plan for how to best chronicle the city, taking into consideration the most important and talked-about stories in Houston as well as where we need to look for stories that aren’t yet being told, ensuring a cogent mix of both reported news stories and thoughtful features. This will be a writing and reporting role as well as a tactical one, and candidates should have extensive experience in those areas as well as experience working in a fast-paced environment with a high volume of stories. The ideal candidate will come with both a vast knowledge of Houston’s culture, history and geography and a passion for sharing that knowledge with readers by coming up with great story ideas, interviewing diverse voices and writing in detail about the city and how it’s evolved over time. Strong news judgment, strong research and reporting skills, and experience interviewing people, developing sources and submitting FOIA requests as a part of a professional newsroom are a must. In addition to reporting and writing their own content, the metro editor will work with Chron’s reporters to flesh out our coverage of Houston and will also oversee coverage of breaking news events that fall under the metro coverage umbrella.

Primary Responsibilities:
• Work with Chron’s leadership to create a cohesive framework our metro coverage

• Develop story ideas, chase new leads, and report and write stories for Chron

• Develop thoughtful features that inform and entertain audiences

• Oversee reporters working on metro stories, ensuring a diverse set of

• Run breaking news coverage of events in the beat, deploying reporters as needed

• Keep an eye on the wires to determine which stories should be repurposed to fill out Chron’s coverage

• Track performance metrics using Chartbeat and Looker to determine which stories work for our audience

Competencies/Critical Skills:
• Excellent news judgment and feature writing skills

• Excellent reporting, researching, and interviewing skills

• The ability to turn around strong, clean copy on a short time frame

• Strong copy-editing skills and knowledge of AP Style

• Experience submitting FOIA requests

• Experience fact-checking stories

• Familiarity with the needs of the Houston audience

• Familiarity with the national digital media landscape

• Familiarity with content management systems

Describe the most challenging aspect of this position:
• Finding compelling story ideas, getting scoops, building out a Rolodex of reliable sources and reporting and writing feature stories in a timely manner

Measures of success for this position include:
• Number of stories published per day, week, and month

• Meeting deadlines and keeping pace with publishing schedule while improving quality of work overtime

• Overall traffic performance of original stories in aims of meeting daily and monthly goals

• Mentions, links, shares, and pickups of stories from prominent third-party publications

• Readers’ shares and other engagement with stories on social media platforms

• Overall increase of unique in-DMA visitors

• Overall increase of loyal in-DMA visitors

Experience, Qualifications, Technical Requirements, Education:
• Bachelor’s degree in journalism, communications or English

• At least 3 years news writing experience, at least 1-year feature writing experience

• Extensive knowledge of local Houston cultures, neighborhoods, politics, food and sports preferred

• Experience using Chartbeat, Google Analytics, Looker, or other analytics tools preferred

• Experience working in a CMS and publishing to digital platforms preferred

As part of its continued efforts to maintain a safe workplace for employees, Hearst Newspapers requires that all employees who receive a written offer of employment be fully vaccinated (as defined by the CDC) against the coronavirus by the first day of employment as a condition of employment, to the extent permitted by applicable law. Hearst Newspapers will consider requests for reasonable accommodations on an individual basis in accordance with applicable legal requirements.