Senior Editor, Early Education & COVID Recovery

Job Description

The 74 is seeking an experienced senior editor to join its national education newsroom to shape and expand its coverage of early education and youth development issues. This editor will also oversee coverage of post-COVID learning losses and recovery, particularly as it pertains to kids five and younger. 

The person in this role will also help scale The 74’s weekly output of commentaries, opinion columns and expert analyses, as we aim to feature more first-person submissions from educators, school leaders, students and policy advocates. 

The 74 recently acquired a digital magazine focused exclusively on early learning issues, and this editor will balance his/her time between managing a content calendar and a roster of writers for this early learning vertical and assisting with other news, features and opinion pieces on other topics in The 74 universe. This editor will also look for opportunities for greater synergy and overlap between the early learning digital magazine and core 74 verticals. 

We are looking for effective and creative line editors and managers with a proven track record in steering writers towards insightful coverage and shepherding engaging and impactful content about education (or education-aligned) issues. We’re looking for detail-oriented big thinkers who can both keep our site current on early ed beat coverage, as well as and other related breaking news. The ideal candidate is also someone who is able to think more broadly about coverage and commentary that can break through the noise, in addition to special projects that will drive the broader national conversation.

Responsibilities Include:

• Oversee all aspects of our vertical dedicated to early learning and youth development.

• Commission, coordinate and edit around three new articles a week, one of them an enterprise feature and the other two a mix of daily news, research analysis or commentary. 

• Manage a twice-monthly newsletter spotlighting both original content and top external reads
  
• Recruit, supervise and coordinate a cadre of regular contributors and provide regular feedback. 

• Partner with our audience team in pursuing new editorial partnerships and social media strategies
  
• Work across 74 teams and newsroom editors to find efficiencies between the early learning efforts and the wider national newsroom, and to leverage opportunities for broader impact

• Balancing priorities: We anticipate this editor will spend 60% of his/her time on early learning coverage, and 40% of the week spearheading content on a wider variety of topics to plug into The 74’s national feeds. In addition to having to juggle topics, this editor must also be comfortable diving into both news coverage and commentary. 

• Work closely with the Editor in Chief and Chief Creative Officer to brainstorm, maintain and execute a monthly calendar of special projects that will cut through the noise and drive the conversation.

• Be an active source of ideas in daily and weekly edit meetings

• Keep abreast of trends, developments, personalities and challenges in education around the country

• Assist with administrative and managerial duties as needed. 
  

Position Requirements:

• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in journalism, communications, public policy or other related field

• Previous experience in editing specialized content; preference will be given to candidates with expertise in steering education coverage as well as early learning content 

• 4+ years of working with reporters to develop a beat, overseeing a daily online news section, or steering a newsroom to maximize impact on the social web
  
• Comfortable in a dynamic, always-changing digital news environment and willingness to adapt in a startup atmosphere as The 74 experiments with scaling coverage and products in this new early ed arena

• Established presence on social media and comfort in using various social networks to reach both readers and influentials

• Track record of finding topics or angles that broke through the static of the web

• Strong communication and time management skills and demonstrated track record in collaborating collegially in a newsroom setting 

• Open to editorial feedback
  
• Strong work ethic coupled with an enthusiastic and passionate approach to the work

• Willingness to work the occasional flexible shift
  

Details:

Generous salary, benefits package, 401k match, and vacation/holiday calendar (including 15 days of PTO and a paid winter recess) 

Location: Flexible (We offer a flexible work environment with access to shared office space in our New York City headquarters, as well as shared office spaces in most major American cities, and the ability to work from home. Preference may be given to East Coast candidates who can meet more regularly in-person with assigning editors) 

The 74 is committed to equal employment opportunities for all applicants and employees and encourages people of all races, colors, national origins, ancestries, creeds, religions, genders, ages, disabilities, veteran statuses, sexual orientations, and marital statuses to apply.

Please submit your resume to careers@the74million.org. 

About The 74

The 74 Media is an award-winning nonprofit education news site covering education in America. In the United States, less than half of our students can read or do math at grade-level, yet most education coverage and debate fails to focus on the kids who are being left behind, the barriers to increasing student achievement, and what’s working for students and families. Our mission is to lead an honest, fact-based conversation about how to give America’s 74 million children under the age of 18 the education they deserve. 

The 74’s coverage enjoys extensive reach, thanks to our strong, strategic social media presence, our syndication on such mass-audience platforms as Apple and Yahoo News, and our ongoing editorial partnerships with publications such as The Texas Tribune, Fast Company, Axios and The Guardian. Our newsroom consists of 19 editors, reporters and videographers along with a network of a dozen standing contributors. In addition to daily news coverage, we also publish a robust opinion page and are known for long-form enterprise features, in-depth investigations, short-form documentaries and informational explainers. Beyond the newsroom, we have published multiple books, launched numerous microsites targeting specific topic areas, and hosted/moderated more than 100 education events across the country.