School Library Journal (SLJ) is looking for a reporter/editor to write, assign, and edit news for our website, e-newsletters and award-winning magazine. If you have serious journalist chops, with an interest in covering libraries, education, and publishing, we’d be interested in hearing from you.
What we’re looking for
First, you’ve got to bring the skills, with demonstrated experience in reporting and editing (clips and references, please). You’ve got excellent news sense and can work independently, making quick decisions around news, able to turn around polished stories on deadline. You’re fastidious when it comes to copy and can handily craft a lede and a headline. Experience with social networking in a journalistic context and multimedia tools: a plus.
You’ll be covering K–12 schools, including legislation, policy, funding, and reform issues; public libraries; education technology; news in kids and YA (young adult) publishing, including authors; and industry initiatives, as well as cornerstone issues, including literacy, copyright, intellectual freedom, and privacy.
It’s a wide-ranging, eclectic beat and one of the challenges of the position. And we’d expect you to dive in fully, with the spirit of a learner, establishing contacts in these fields—from big associations and vendors to on-the-ground librarians and educators—getting up to speed on the issues (e.g. ebooks, Common Core, etc.), tapping into the insight of your colleagues, unafraid to ask dumb questions.
Passion for the subject is essential to the job—without a true interest in education and libraries, you won’t grasp the larger issues or be motivated to pursue the details to provide the depth of coverage necessary to serve our users.
What the job entails
Per the formal job posting: “The news editor will write and report stories, overseeing news flow to the website, e-newsletters, and print magazine, and assign and edit stories by freelancers and in-house staff.” That means you’ll take point on determining and executing stories posted daily to our site and set the lineup for our newsletters. You’ll also build a stable of freelancer reporters. And we’ll tap you to edit and write the occasional feature story and edit columns. (Our standards, for the feature well in particular, are high—take a look, if you haven’t already, to really get to know our content across the board, print to Web.)
You’re nimble and responsive around what’s going on in the field and look to provide the very best news coverage to inform and engage our users, primarily school/public librarians and information professionals who work with kids and young adults, and by extension their teacher peers and related institutions. You want to do good as well as do a good job.
How to apply
Review the listing in our Job Zone, which has the requirements and the rundown of benefits for this fulltime position at our offices located at the western edge of Soho in Manhattan. Then follow the link to begin the application process.
Photo by Roger H. Goun
About Kathy Ishizuka