This new Senior Director role will develop and execute on a new vision for NPR’s digital news and programming strategy in partnership with stakeholders in other divisions.
You’ll be responsible for working across the newsroom in collaboration with shows, reporting desks, and programming to develop and execute on best practices for distributing audio, breaking news, enterprise, newsletters, and other platforms in a digital world, with a goal of growing new and existing audiences.
The Senior Director will be a progressive thought leader in the news division regarding how to serve and engage our audiences on the platforms and modes that they use throughout the day to ensure we are delivering the wide array of content – music, news, stories, podcasts -- people need and want in intuitive, accessible and relevant ways.
NPR is a highly matrixed organization. This role will also represent the newsroom as a partner with programming, Digital Media, and other stakeholders in the company to ensure the newsroom’s digital strategy encompasses the broader needs of NPR, our platforms, and our member stations.
This position will report to the SVP News with a dotted line relationship to the Executive Editor.
- Serve as leader of our digital efforts for the newsroom, working to unify our efforts across shows, desks, programming and digital news and products.
- Develop best practices for the newsroom for delivering content, including audio, breaking news, email, newsletters, push notifications, social sharing, and interactivity; work closely with all newsroom teams to ensure those best practices are implemented.
- Developing best practices for engaging our audience, and growing engagement. A vital function of this role will be to understand our audience segments across platforms and develop a strategy to engage users with the right content for the moment through different channels.
- Champion new forms of digital reporting and story-telling.
- Develop and share best practices around data with the newsroom, and ensure data is front and center in decision-making and programming.
- In partnership with business development and Digital Media, plan and execute growth strategies from new products to engagement tactics to SEO.
- Serve as the newsroom’s partner with Programming, Digital Media, and Music to ensure the organization is working in tandem to achieve our corporate digital goals across platforms and devices as we expand in a world where users will move from device to device throughout the day. This will include helping to drive the digital product roadmap from the newsroom perspective.
- Partner with our training team to develop curriculum for the NPR newsroom and member stations on best practices for data, digital content and engagement
- 5+ years of experience in developing and executing digital news strategies, preferably at the national level
- Knowledge of, and ability to lead, the myriad skills and disciplines necessary to succeed on a digital platform including: data and analytics, data, digital design and data visualization, engagement, aggregation and breaking news
- A record of multi-platform leadership.
- Experience in editorial decision-making, including assigning reporters/correspondents, and editing and programming for the web
- Strong oral and written communication skills.
- Ability to handle multiple and complex projects simultaneously under stringent timeframes and changing priorities/conditions.
- Ability to work quickly and efficiently under deadline pressure.
- Ability and willingness to work to work varied shifts.
- Demonstrated team collaboration and leadership skills.
- Knowledge of audio production.
- Experience editing for radio is preferable
- Familiarity with content management systems and collaboration tools such as Google Docs, Basecamp, etc.
- Familiarity with NPR member stations and public media system.
- Expertise in writing, with excellence in news writing, copy-editing and headline writing.
- Demonstrated ability to generate and execute complex creative ideas, to assimilate and organize large amounts of information.
- Understanding of changing landscape in media business and audience choices in finding reliable sources of information on multiple platforms.
NPR offers a competitive compensation and comprehensive benefits package including health and wellness benefits, retirement, and work/life balance programs, as well as opportunities for career growth and development.