Audience Editor

The Independent is an online news publisher that was established in 1986 as a national newspaper independent of party political affiliations or proprietorial influence. In 2016, The Independent became a fully digital publisher, moving away from print in pursuit of sustainability, and to safeguard its values and journalism for the future.

The Independent has always thrived through innovation and change. It was the first British newspaper to add a Saturday magazine; the first to give photography the same prestige as a news copy; the first to challenge the Westminster lobby system of closed briefings; the first broadsheet to move to the more compact ‘tabloid’ format; the first to launch a concise quality compact paper; and the first – and only – major newspaper to pull off a successful transformation to fully digital publishing.

Through The Independent, Independent TV, eCommerce, indy100, subscriptions and other ‘reader revenues’, The Independent plans to continue the work of many decades, bringing much-needed independent journalism to over 100 million unique global visitors a month, make its voice ever louder and more insistent the world over.

We have an international editorial team with our main offices in London and New York.

Job purpose

The Independent is recruiting an Audience Editor to play an essential role in maintaining and growing our online readership. You will work alongside editors and reporters across desks to commission, optimise and promote breaking and in-depth news coverage. This role will demand knowledge and understanding of a plethora of topics from Strictly contestants to the names of key US cabinet members. The successful candidate will have experience managing social media accounts as well as optimising news articles for search and other Google products. In addition, you will need a firm grasp of grammar and journalistic training such as NCTJ or equivalent. This is a role at the heart of the newsroom where quick-thinking and thriving under pressure is essential.

About you

The Independent is looking for a dynamic and experienced audience editor to grow its global reach and help lead changes in editorial strategy and workflow.

As part of the UK audience team, the right candidate will be a highly-organised self-starter, with a deep understanding of how to achieve audience growth across all platforms, as well as being a skilled journalist and wordsmith. They will work on stories across the newsroom and the globe.

We are looking for someone who has a genuine passion for content and how best to achieve audiences on a large scale. You might be a trained journalist with experience in an equivalent organisation, keen to specialise as an audience editor.

You’ll be working in a fast-paced environment where accuracy and creativity are key so the ability to think under pressure is vital.

We are preferably looking for candidates from a journalistic background with newsroom and social media or SEO experience, but will consider someone with excellent social media or SEO skills, a strong interest in news and the ability to learn quickly.

This role will be hybrid remote, spending 3 days per week in our offices in Moorgate.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

• We champion diversity in our teams and in our reporting. As a growing and global brand, we must have a workforce that’s more representative of our readers, viewers, clients and partners, and a workplace that creates a sense of belonging for everyone.
• We are committed to hiring and developing a diverse workforce regardless of background, and we support our people to thrive in their careers here.

The Independent is an equal opportunities employer, if you require any reasonable adjustments to complete your application, please do not hesitate to advise us accordingly.

The team

The Independent’s audience team enables millions across the globe to read our wide-ranging and in-depth coverage. Not only that, our team looks to ever grow the size and loyalty of that readership. The team is split between our London, New York and Delhi offices.

Key responsibilities and accountabilities

• Monitor news and wires constantly for traffic opportunities
• Recraft headlines to make content pop on and off platform
• Help inform journalistic decisions with audience best practice in mind
• Help to implement social media strategy across all platforms
• Post to social media - Facebook, Twitter and Instagram primarily
• Use analytics platforms to report on performance and spot opportunities
• Suggest stories and subjects for different areas of the site, from news to culture, lifestyle to sport
• Drive the growth of Independent across social media
• Develop SEO skills under the guidance of other team members

Skills

• Strong familiarity with The Independent and our coverage
• Proven track record for increasing followers, engagement and traffic on social media or growth through SEO
• Excellent organisational and planning skills required to manage the daily/weekly/monthly publishing flow of an editorial team.
• Ability to collaborate with editors to grow and increase audience, both on site and across platforms.
• Ability to analyse complex issues and developing actionable insights and plans – using data from proprietary platform analytics (e.g. Facebook) and or third-party aggregate sources (e.g., CrowdTangle).
• Experience using reporting and analytics tools (Omniture, Chartbeat) or willingness to learn,
• Skilled content creator.
• Expert knowledge of trends and tools for social media platforms.
• Experience of working in a dynamic fast-paced media environment.

Our values – you will deliver across all our values

We champion diversity in our teams and in our reporting. Working as a team, we put transparency and effective communication at the heart of everything we do.

We take risks and are always looking to try new ideas in pursuit of excellence.

Nobody tells us what to think; we make up our own minds and aren’t afraid to do things differently. Like our readers, we value honesty and integrity above outside influences.