Lead Editor

The Houston Landing is looking for individuals to add to our team of passionate people on a mission to advance democracy in our communities and strengthen the lives of all Houstonians one story at a time. Houston Landing is an independent, nonpartisan news organization devoted to public service journalism. Initially supported by three of Houston’s leading philanthropies including Arnold Ventures, The Houston Endowment, and the Kinder Foundation, we are building a team to support our efforts in sustainability and revenue growth.

The Houston Landing is looking for a Local News Editor to join our growing team. The ideal editor has a proven track record of talent development, rigorous story selection, deft and tight editing, watchdog mindset and a fluency in audience growth.

Based on skills and experience, we can build a reporting team around the right candidate. We seek a Local Editor who can run daily journalism, understands the power of visual storytelling, newsletters, and a multicultural approach to coverage that captures the essence and beauty of Houston and our surrounding communities.

Requirements

What you'll do

• Work closely with reporters to cover news that ranges from breaking news to enterprise, across platforms from data visualization to videos, photo slideshows and online interactives.
• Ensure your reporters are in the community, attend gatherings, town halls and other events to find sources, elevate diverse perspectives and story ideas.
• Align your team’s coverage around our key pillars, from education to public money, the environment, quality of life and more. Our journalism is aimed at impact, work that changes laws, police, improves lives and creates solutions for our community.
• Collaborate with our audience team, development and marketing team and product to create journalism that strengthens our community and attracts donors to support our mission.

Who you are

• Have five-10 years of editing or senior reporting experience with a history of high-impact, community focused journalism.
• Record of deploying multiple digital platforms to tell a story.
• Coach who makes their team stronger each and every day.
• Impeccable news judgment, urgent. Creative in storytelling. Collaborative at all times.
• Ability to find stories, organized, always accurate, deadline-driven.
• Spanish fluency is a plus.

Benefits

OUR VALUES

EXCELLENCE: We wake up every day with the intent to be the best at what we do. We hustle. We have grit. When we make mistakes, we’ll learn from them.

INCLUSION: We aren’t all the same, and those differences are what make us better. We’ll respect each person’s uniqueness. Perspective, context and life experiences help us to tell the story.

AMBITION: We will be bold and creative, open to all ideas big or small. We really mean it.

FUN: We are not making widgets, although there is nothing wrong with widgets. We tell stories and stories are often fun, so we believe in having lots of fun.

‍COLLABORATION: We are all in this together. We may not always agree, but we will listen to each other and communicate candidly and respectfully.

Benefits

• Compensation commensurate with experience, minimum of $100,000
• 401(k)
• Healthcare 100% premium paid for employee and 50% for dependents
• 20 vacation days
• Ten sick days
• Generous paid parental leave
• Hybrid work policy (initially we all work together to build culture)
• Stipend for development / learning

We’re committed to building an inclusive organization that represents the people and communities we serve. We encourage members of traditionally underrepresented communities to apply, including women, people of color, veterans, LGBTQ+ people and people with disabilities.