Standards and Policy Editor

Job Description

Nexstar Digital believes online news can be balanced, accurate, and high quality. We're looking for an experienced editor who can guide a nationally distributed team of reporters into a common set of principles and standards that demonstrate the values our audiences know us for.

The Standards and Policy Editor is responsible for ensuring the accuracy and quality of our reporting process. They define the best practices for our journalism, in how it's collected, how it's written, and how it's presented to the communities we work in. This editor will document the high standards we're known for and elevate the conversation to incorporate the wide variety of perspectives our journalists bring from all across the country, bringing diverse perspectives to our journalism.

From setting sourcing expectations to enforcing style decisions and training on copy editing, this editor will have the ability to positively affect hundreds of journalists in newsrooms touching nearly every state, in both local and national publications.

Candidates should have a BA in Journalism, Communications, Writing or education in a similar field. A background in reporting and/or in managing a newsroom is preferable, and fluency in all digital platforms is required. Applicants should have the highest ethical standards and bring demonstrable leadership experience.

Responsibilities
• Proactively monitoring stories published and to be published
• Reviewing and rewriting headlines to account for standards and policies
• Providing sensitivity and standards reads to newsrooms for categories of stories
• Leading a Digital Standards Council that adapts standards to new situations
• Primary liaison between editorial and Legal
• Coaching new writers and editors through the reporting process
• Creating digital style policy for a national network of newsrooms
• Establishing publication procedures for multiple online distribution points
• Setting, training, and enforcing reporting standards
• Developing ideas and sourcing for content
• Overseeing content production

Qualifications
• 10 years of editing experience in a newsroom environment
• Bachelor's degree
• Experience with the legal aspects of the journalism business
• Strong writing and editing skills
• Experience with content management systems
• Great attention to detail
• Strong interpersonal skills
• Ability to give constructive feedback
• Understanding and adherence to AP style

Daily activities for this role will focus on content quality review, corrections triage, and proactive problem prevention to ensure journalistic quality in all steps of publication.

Content quality review:
• The day begins by working with Regional EPs to review content plans to scan for stories likely to present common journalistic problems for the topic or the originating market.
• As content is published, the editor reviews both by direct request and by samples of headlines, alerts, social posts, home pages, etc.

Existing problems triage:
• The Standards email is used by local teams several times a day. This editor will speak for digital by managing correction language and display, as well as ensuring proper updates across all platforms where affected content may have appeared. The goal is to make sure no wrong content remains published across all platforms we distribute across.
• This editor is digital's primary liaison for Nexstar Legal and manages requests and executes decisions affecting content.

Proactive problems prevention:
• Documentation of digital best-practices policies will be done in coordination with newsrooms, Legal, and a Standards Council designed to adapt existing policy as new situations develop.
• Regular training on these digital policies will give us consistent quality standards across all newsrooms.
• This editor will be the go-to for challenging questions about how to report stories, including investigations and complex sourcing issues.

Jobcode: Reference SBJ-rnv863-18-220-106-241-42 in your application.