Managing Editor, Communities + Platforms

Position Summary

Chicago Public Media is seeking a Managing Editor, Community + Platforms to lead the newsroom's community engagement, audience growth, and multiplatform publishing strategy. This senior newsroom leader will oversee the teams responsible for connecting our journalism with audiences across digital, social, newsletters, community engagement, video, photography, print, and emerging platforms.

As a member of the newsroom leadership team, you will develop a community-first editorial strategy that strengthens how journalism is produced, distributed, and experienced by our audiences across every platform. You will lead efforts to align community and audience insights with editorial decision-making, modernize newsroom workflows, and ensure our investments in platforms and storytelling formats reflect changing audience behaviors.

The Managing Editor, Community + Platforms will oversee the Audience, Engaged Journalism, and Platforms teams, building a collaborative structure that brings together platform innovation, visual story-telling, audience development, community engagement and print production. This leader will partner closely with the newsroom, product, technology, membership, and marketing/data analytics teams to ensure Chicago Public Media's journalism reaches and serves audiences wherever they are.

If you are passionate about community-centered journalism, newsroom transformation, and building sustainable strategies for public service journalism, we encourage you to apply.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and lead a unified editorial strategy that centers community and audience growth, community engagement, and multiplatform publishing across Chicago Public Media.
• Oversee the newsroom's Audience, Engaged Journalism, and Platforms teams, ensuring strong collaboration across editorial, product, technology, membership, and marketing.
• Lead editorial strategy across newsletters, social media, audience engagement, community initiatives, print production, photography, video, interactive storytelling, and emerging platforms.
• Use audience insights, analytics, and community feedback to inform editorial priorities, distribution strategies, and newsroom planning.
• Establish workflows and editorial standards that support efficient, audience-first publishing across all platforms while improving collaboration between teams.
• Partner with newsroom leadership to shape platform coverage strategies for breaking news, enterprise reporting, special projects, and organizational priorities.
• Lead platform innovation initiatives, including new storytelling formats, workflow improvements, and investments in emerging audience opportunities.
• Build and mentor a high-performing leadership team while fostering a culture of experimentation, collaboration, accountability, and continuous improvement.
• Work with newsroom leaders to identify operational efficiencies, optimize platform investments, and support long-term organizational sustainability.

Minimum Qualifications

• Significant leadership responsibilities in audience strategy, community engagement, newsroom editorial, and/or multiplatform publishing.
• Demonstrated success leading audience growth, community engagement, or platform strategy in a complex editorial organization.
• Experience managing multidisciplinary teams across audience, engagement, digital publishing, visual journalism, or newsroom operations.
• Strong editorial judgment with a deep understanding of audience behavior, digital publishing, and evolving media platforms.
• Experience using audience research, analytics, and performance data to guide editorial strategy and organizational decision-making.
• Proven ability to lead organizational change, build collaborative workflows, and manage cross-functional initiatives.
• Experience balancing daily news operations with long-term strategic planning and innovation.
• Exceptional leadership, communication, and change management skills.
• Commitment to public service journalism, inclusive storytelling, collaboration, and serving diverse communities.

Education

Bachelor's degree in journalism, communications, digital media, public affairs, or a related field preferred; advanced degree also preferred.

Compensation

The expected pay range for this position is $145,000 - $160,000 per ANNUM.

Chicago Public Media provides pay ranges representing its good faith estimate of what the organization reasonably expects to pay for a position.  The pay offered to a selected candidate will be determined based on factors such as (but not limited to the scope and responsibilities of the position, the qualifications of the selected candidate, departmental budget availability, internal equity, geographical location, and external market pay for comparable jobs.