College Journalism Network Editor

About CalMatters

At CalMatters, we’ve discovered the secret to sustaining journalism: Passionate college students who want to report, write, edit and produce news coverage because they know how important it is to our society. 

So we’re going to help them. The California College Journalism Network will identify, mentor and support dozens of students. We’ll train them with webinars, on-campus workshops and Sacramento reporting days. We’ll help them make time for journalism by paying them to cover state policy issues in their communities, with a strong focus on the costs of college and the other challenges they face. And in communities where the campus news organization is the only one doing meaningful coverage, we’ll use the resources of CalMatters and our statewide media partners to help them fill that need.  

If you’re an editor, mentor, coach and manager who’s as excited as we are about the next generation of student journalists, you might be the perfect coordinator for this new effort. 

In four years, CalMatters has become the largest newsroom covering California policy and politics. We’re a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, and we give our coverage at no cost to more than 180 media outlets across the state. By leading this new college network, you’ll help us support the next generation of California journalists while building a strong talent pipeline for the industry and improving coverage in underserved areas. 

The position is ideally based in Sacramento but may be done from elsewhere in the state. It will require occasional travel. 

Responsibilities include: 

• Build and maintain relationships with student journalists and professors and advisers.
• Identify, vet, engage and work closely with students chosen for the program. 
• Collect journalism done by the students, edit and publish it on the CalMatters site. 
• Be the conduit between our journalists and the students. Seek feeds from students to CalMatters reporters. Coordinate and edit student work to localize CalMatters stories.
• Coordinate, and sometimes lead, training sessions both online and in person. 
• Identify and establish the vision and plan for this new venture, learning about its potential and identifying the best target audiences and communication strategies.
• Engage the college network in CalMatters public events.
• Manage tracking metrics about the network’s reach and production and impact.
• Manage the budget for the program. 

A background education journalism would be a plus, as would proficiency in more than one of the languages used widely in our state. 

We are an expanding and collaborative newsroom, successfully forging a new model for sustainable, intelligent, nonprofit journalism. We’re committed to diversity and especially encourage members of underrepresented communities to apply. If you’re interested, please provide a resume, a cover letter that outlines how you would approach the job and links to relevant journalism or other projects you’ve done. Write to [email protected] with the job title in the subject line. You can view the posting on our website: https://calmatters.org/about/jobs/college-journalism-network-editor/