Community Editor / Journalist - Brooklyn, New York

Date Posted	September 17, 2024
Industry	Newspapers
Specialty	Consumer
Job Status	Full-time

Description:

Reporter/Journalist - Brooklyn

A position has just opened at The Queens Ledger / Brooklyn Star News Group for a community reporter/editor primarily covering downtown and northern Brookyn. We seek a reporter/community editor with the ambition to grow within our company into news editor and managing editor for our weekly newspapers.

It requires an organized, motivated journalist to cover community news in neighborhoods within downtown and northern Brooklyn NY. The office is in Woodside, Queens, just steps fro m the ‘7’ train. The position requires either knowledge of northern and downtown Brooklyn or the ability to quickly learn about life here. We publish a collection of eight hyper-local print weekly community newspapers - mostly paid circulation & mailed subscription based. We also publish a monthly glossy print magazine focusing on business in Queens. Some of our newspapers have been continually published each week for over a hundred years. We have won countless NY-Press awards for our news coverage, digital innovation and photography. Our readers count on us to bring information about events, news and community based programs for their families. We do this by covering civic and community meetings as well as profiling leaders in our communities. The work of our reporters involves covering night and weekend meetings & events.

We, of course, are not just newspapers anymore. We produce a dozen news websites, daily newsletters & social media (@queensledger). We are looking for today's journalist, with a variety of skills including writing, curating, design, photography and proficiency in social media.  We can teach you our platforms, but we prefer if you know wordpress and indesign, as our reporters/editors are hands-on with publishing on our platforms. If you were the editor of your college newspaper or if you had this type of journalism job in another area, this could be for you. As long as you have desire and are digitally savvy, a curious journalist and are enterprising, you could be right for us. 

We build upon the trust the community has for our legacy print newspapers, which are sold and/or available on newsstands and mailed every week. We aggressively use a print and digital strategy to build engagement throughout all platforms. We run political polls, games, contests and cover just about any news item that our readers crave. Yes, the reader comes first in our shop. We get involved in endorsing for everything from the mayor's race to local council elections - so we meet and interview most candidates running for local, citywide and statewide office.

Here you will be curating newsletters, writing news, covering events, aggregating news for our daily newsletter and profiling movers & shakers in many of our communities. With a brand that has covered the news for more than a century our stories have impact. This position can be done for someone just out of school.

You will need to have a variety of skills including writing, curating, design, photography and proficiency in social media. 

Key Factors in doing this job:

- Strong news judgment and editing skills 

- An ability to quickly understand community, civic and local political leaders. 

- Knowledge of how local government and city/state agencies work.

- You should be a 'New York News Junkie"

- Outgoing and confident personality. Including having the ability to manage a story that a freelancer covers.

- Knowledge of Brooklyn/Queens is preferable.

Helpful skills:

• - Indesign (you will be doing layout of pages for pint), 
• - Familiarity with wordpress.
• - Understanding of social media / news site context.
• - Time management.

Salary to start 36K + travel + health

Raise in 6 months and again in 6 months. We are looking to hire immediately.

Apply to jobs@queensledger.com

What else:

This position involves working inside our editorial offices. An automobile is helpful but not required. If you indeed have experience in leading an editorial staff, apply, and we can have a discussion on a different level.