Senior Policy, Politics & Ideas Editor

Position description

Vox is seeking an experienced editor to oversee a team of writers who explore and explain the impact of ideas on global and American culture, politics, and daily life. This editor should be comfortable leading a diverse team covering a wide range of subjects, including but not limited to international news, domestic politics and policy, race, culture, and more.

 

This position will work under the editorial director for policy, politics and ideas, but this role will not be focused on news coverage of political or policy developments. We’re looking for an editor who can help put the day-to-day in perspective and see around the corner to help readers understand influential ideas and arguments, in formats ranging from quick daily pieces to in-depth, argument-driven (but still reported) features and essays. 

 

Instead of writing about, say, the latest developments in the Middle East in an incremental way, we want writers to find a sharp angle that cuts through the conversation, or a step-back explainer that gives the reader a comprehensive understanding of the region, or an argument-driven reported essay that makes the case for a certain policy. Instead of reporting the daily back-and-forth on a bill in Congress, we want an editor to assign pieces that zoom out to the underlying problem, or offer a crisp perspective on what the fight says about the state of the American political system. In other words, we want distinctive angles on the day’s news, something that adds value to what’s already being reported in dozens of other outlets.

 

This editor should be comfortable working with different formats and thinking creatively about the best way to approach major events and conversations of today, while guiding writers to do entrepreneurial intellectual work to find the emerging ideas that will shape those events tomorrow. 

 

You should think about news and sourcing broadly — how can ideas in history, social science, activism or legal academia help us understand what’s happening now? Which thinkers are doing important work that will reshape mainstream discourse or shed light on major events? We’re looking for a wide-ranging intellect who is comfortable in the world of ideas, broadly conceived. 

 

WHO WE ARE

Vox candidly shepherds audiences through politics and policy, business and pop culture, food, science, and everything else that matters.

Vox is part of Vox Media, the leading modern media company. We guide our audience from discovery to obsession. We inspire essential conversations about what’s now, what’s next, and what’s possible.

As a community of journalists and storytellers, business professionals, creators and technologists, we believe it is a moral and business imperative to amplify voices: to cultivate diversity, equity, and inclusion throughout our organization and media. This applies to our candidates, our teams, our storytelling, our creative work, and our platforms, products, and partnerships.

 

WHAT YOU’LL DO

• Set the broader editorial vision and daily coverage priorities for a small team of reporters
• Conceptualize, assign, and edit pieces rooted in reporting and research, including explainers, argument-driven essays, and features
• Stay on top of the news, both foreign and domestic, to find the angles that will lead to truly distinctive analytical, contextual, and deeply informed journalism
• Manage and lead our team of writers, with an eye toward expanding our freelance stable
• Find opportunities for collaboration with Vox’s audio and video teams and other editors across the Vox newsroom

 

Qualifications

• 5 years’ experience editing
• Strong leadership, management, and editing skills
• Analytical rigor. We want an editor with an ability to pressure-test our own writers’ arguments and steelman opposing ones. We want an editor who can confidently edit pieces that explain ideas and/or stake out intellectual claims, and who is eager to assign and edit pieces that embrace nuance and complicate narratives without sacrificing clarity.
• Excellent news judgment and a demonstrated ability to bring analysis and sharp angles to news stories
• Familiarity with or interest in a range of subject areas — history, political science, economics, foreign policy and IR, science and tech, among others. To be clear, expertise in any (let alone all) of these fields is not an expectation. We’re seeking a curious, peripatetic mind to guide a team with a range of intellectual passions.
• Experience editing/familiarity with foreign coverage is a plus. Though this is not primarily a foreign affairs editing position, we do expect our writers to be able to analyze and offer perspectives on developments in the wider world.

If you think you have what it takes, but don’t meet every single point in our job posting, please apply with a cover letter to let us know how you believe you can bring your unique skills to the Vox Media team or get in touch! We’ve hired chefs who became editors, DJs who became UX designers, and sommeliers who became writers.

Application instructions

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