ProPublica is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest.
ProPublica is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism with moral force. We dig deep into important issues, shining a light on abuses of power and betrayals of public trust — and we stick with those issues as long as it takes to hold power to account.
We are seeking an audience editor who will lead the daily management and programming of our social platforms. Your work will focus on distributing new stories and reader callouts, recirculating evergreen stories and promoting ProPublica events, membership drives and more. As needed, the role will also work closely with senior editors and reporters on the written and visual presentation of stories, helping to write headlines, push-notification language and related social copy. Because this role requires working on Saturdays, we want this candidate to be mindful of how we program our social channels differently during the weekend.
This position is part of ProPublica’s audience team and will report to the deputy audience editor.
Essential responsibilities
- Schedule and program ProPublica’s social media channels, including Twitter/X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Threads, Mastodon, Blue Sky and other platforms while assessing new ways to help us elevate our presence on social media.
- Deploy test-and-learn tactics to determine the best messages and social copy for promoting stories on various platforms.
- Interpret data and analytics to measure the impact of your work.
- Send push notifications to our audiences on desktop, native iOS and Android apps, and Apple News.
- Spot opportunities to respond to and build off existing work, repromoting stories and reposting social media posts from our journalists.
- Write and edit concise, compelling headlines and decks for stories, explainers, impact follow-ups and more.
- Participate in story and planning meetings as needed to best build out stories for social platforms.
- Draft social copy for your assigned stories, which can include single posts, X (formerly Twitter) threads, Instagram captions and more.
- Serve as the point person for your assigned stories, helping to inform the audience team of findings, potential promotional opportunities, and on-site and off-platform performance metrics.
- Attend daily, 15-minute editorial and audience standups and weekly team meetings.
About you
We are looking for someone who has social media production, audience engagement and editing experience. The ideal candidate will have many of these attributes:
- At least four years and up to six years of experience creating social content and running social platforms.
- Experience managing social channels for a newsroom is a must. A background in breaking news or at a national publication is a plus.
- Demonstrated success managing social media across multiple platforms simultaneously.
- Strong headline writing and copy editing skills, as well as a familiarity with AP style.
- Strong news judgment and a deep understanding of how stories can resonate with our audiences.
- Deep understanding of platform-specific content best practices and a willingness to adapt to new platforms and strategies.
- Experience with social media scheduling and analytics tools, like SocialFlow, True Anthem, Buffer and Later.
- Familiarity with content analytics tools, like Google Analytics, Parse.ly and Chartbeat.
- A history of leveraging social media platforms to maximize the impact and reach of a news story, all with the goal of making the journalism as accessible as it can be for as many people as possible.
- An understanding of how to visually present our stories on social platforms.
- A data-driven mindset with the ability to effectively interpret social data and report on it.
- A collaborative mindset, stellar communication skills and the ability to work on several stories at once. You’ll need to stay organized and focused, and to meet deadlines.
- Experience working on enterprise and investigative journalism a plus.
- Available to work a Tuesday-through-Saturday schedule.
This role is open to remote candidates. Applicants must be eligible to work in the U.S. The expected salary for this position is $80,000 to $100,000.
This is a good-faith estimate of what we expect to pay. The final wage will take into account a person’s experience, accomplishment and location. ProPublica is committed to paying its staff equitably, and these ranges should not be considered wage limits or caps.
We will begin reviewing applications as we receive them, but we will continue to consider candidates as long as the posting remains live on our site.
Questions? Send an email to [email protected].
No phone calls, please.
We know there are great candidates who may not fit into what we’ve described above or who have important skills we haven’t thought of. If that’s you, don’t hesitate to apply and tell us about yourself.
We are dedicated to improving our newsroom, in part by better reflecting the people we cover. (Here is a breakdown of our staff.) We are committed to diversity and building an inclusive environment for people of all backgrounds and ages. And we are taking steps to meet that commitment. We especially encourage members of traditionally underrepresented communities to apply, including women, people of color, LGBTQ+ people and people with disabilities. We are an equal opportunity employer and prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind. All employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, age or any other status protected under applicable law.