Engagement Editor

Do you care about government, policy and politics? Do you believe journalism plays an important role in our democracy? Do you live on social media and have a passion for storytelling? 

If so, you might be the next Engagement Editor at CalMatters. 

With a state of 40 million Californians, we know we only reach a fraction of the people who would want our essential coverage. So we need an enthusiastic Engagement Editor who will lead our brand presence on social media, engage Californians in smart conversations and make our newsroom smarter about publishing and promoting our work.

We’re looking for someone with strong writing and editing skills, experience creating visual assets for social media, a passion for journalism and the ability to flourish in a high-energy, fast-paced newsroom. 

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 in California. As our Engagement Editor, you’ll help us increase the impact of journalism that’s designed to inform and engage Californians about issues that are vital to our democracy and society. So we also want to hear your ideas about how to have meaningful impact and measure it. 

This position is based in our Sacramento newsroom. 

Responsibilities include: 

• Package our journalism in compelling ways on Facebook, Facebook Groups, Twitter, Reddit, Instagram and other platforms.
• Engage with existing and new readers to bring them into conversations and increase civic engagement among a diverse array of Californians.
• Maintain a CalMatters voice across platforms that is friendly and informative, authoritative and engaging. 
• Participate in news meetings to plan engagement strategies for upcoming work. Coordinate with reporters and editors to develop the best messages for sharing stories.
• Develop strategies for using social media to report stories, raising questions and seeking responses and experts on topics that we’re developing.
• Develop an overall social strategy, identifying goals and targets for our communications and the complementary work by each reporter. 
• Cover events, hearings and breaking news on social media with live video, tweet threads and other forms of engaging original content.
• Collaborate with the Membership Director to convert social users into newsletter subscribers and donors.
• Analyze metrics to make our work even more engaging and use that knowledge to make the newsroom smarter about headline writing, publishing schedules, story packaging and other factors that help us reach people. 

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 samples of relevant work you’ve done in the past. 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/engagement-editor/