Senior Editor, Sports (AJC)

The AJC’s mission is to be the most essential and engaging source of news and information for the people of Atlanta, of Georgia and the South. To achieve that mission, we will transform ourselves from a storied daily newspaper into a modern media company, where reporters, product ninjas, video/audio masters, digital gurus, and much more are delivering work across diverse creative platforms, industries, and borders.

As Sr Editor of Sports Co (Pro Teams), you will be responsible for growing our audiences among our professional sports coverage. You will lead a team of reporters consisting of pro teams, general assignment, and enterprise reporting. Success will be accomplished by balancing being essential to our current audience and being engaging to attract a new audience. Our core growth areas will be Atlanta, all of Georgia, and the greater Southeast. This person will assess the current coverage strategy of professional teams, identify areas of growth, pivot where needed, and deploy your team to achieve desired goals. This is a leadership position within Sports, and a large part of the job will be the growth and development of your team. As a leader, you will be required to assist other editors when business dictates the need, as they will also assist you when needed.

Duties of this role include:

• Lead the coverage of our professional teams and events such as Masters, Tour Championship, World Cup, etc., in which Atlanta and/or Georgia is the center of the sport.
• Direct the coverage to balance the need to remain credible while engaging to reach new audiences.
• Work with Head of Sports to deploy reporters to cover the teams/sports as needed to support business objectives.
• Assign Enterprise Reporter topics of interest that bring new users to our site and serve our current subscribers.
• Collaborate with leaders across other departments (Product, Programming, Technology, and Marketing) to ensure that content is provided to our various platforms.
• Work with programming to ensure our coverage is promoted on our site and other means such as social media.
• Work with other Sports editors to ensure coverage on daily news standups and monthly meetings.
• Ensure all processes are covered in a timely manner; recommend enhancements needed and provide assistance to others.
• Assist where needed so that all AJC products are lifted by Sports Co franchises.
• Work with Head of Sports on team and individual goals as led by the news department (where applicable).
• Understand how the metrics allow our company to achieve our goals. Use metrics to make informed staffing or coverage decisions when needed.
• Build and maintain a long-range editorial map to allow informed decisions on audience projections and, in some cases, support advertising.
• Ensure appropriate staff (contractors/part-time) is available during peak times and work with other editors on coverage when necessary.

Coach, Collaborate & Culture

• Provide an environment where our writers are enabled to do their best work.
• Build a culture where Sports Co. is the destination within the state of Georgia for top reporters.
• Coach and collaborate so that everyone on the team is working towards the same goal, which is audience growth and paid digital subscribers.
• Ensure content is fresh, fan-focused, accurate, fair, and meets style guidelines.
• Partner with content leaders to ensure team members have robust coverage plans that can include newsletters, events, regular audio, and video storytelling.
• Partner with leaders responsible for video, audio, and production to establish robust plans aligned with team coverage plans.
• Coach your team so that all reporters have a defined growth & development plan.
• Demonstrate leadership skills with an emphasis on respectful inclusion.
• Collaborate with Product, Marketing, Technology, and Sales teams to achieve all company goals for subscribers and revenue.

Education and Skills

• Bachelor's degree (preferably in journalism, marketing, product management) and 8+ years working in a media organization with at least 3 in leadership type roles OR (MS Degree + 6 years experience) OR 12+ years with no degree.
• 5+ years working in digital media preferred.
• Expert knowledge of a fan-based media operation and how it engages with fans.
• Working knowledge of the various formats (video/audio) and programming.
• Demonstrated understanding and experience working with metrics.
• Previous partnership with product and analytics teams.
• Growth mindset.
• The ability to guide the team to agile practices.
• Highly flexible.
• Project management skills.
• Above-average people skills to interact with platform fans.
• Ability to nurture clients and grow client relationships.
• Proven ability to implement process and work-flow across a scaling company.

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