About New York Focus
New York Focus is an independent newsroom covering New York state and local politics, founded in October 2020 by a team of early-career journalists. We bring to New York the hard-hitting adversarial reporting best exemplified on the national level by outlets like The Intercept. In our first six months, we’ve published investigations of New York’s politicians and power brokers, explainers on under-examined legislation and political processes, and perspectives on nascent popular movements. Our core beats include budget justice and economic democracy; climate and energy; housing and homelessness; immigration and labor rights; and incarceration and policing.
About the Job
New York Focus is seeking a publisher who will oversee fundraising, development, and administration. Recent generous grants have given us more room to focus on institution-building, and we’re hoping to find an energetic team member who would grow our business and operations. They will be the highest-ranking non-editorial staffer on our masthead.
We are a young organization. In addition to staying on top of existing responsibilities, an ideal candidate would assign themselves new ones, thinking creatively and constantly trying new things. Much of what we’ve achieved in our first half-year has been through the energy and enthusiasm we’ve conveyed to readers, partners and funders; an ideal candidate would share this enthusiasm and be excited to help build and shape New York Focus as we complete our first year.
Primary duties and responsibilities for the position, broken down by rough time commitment, are as follows:
About You
We want to work closely with someone who is as excited about holding the powerful accountable in New York as we are. The ideal candidate would share our dedication to high-impact investigative journalism. He or she would hone that vision with us, while building relationships with funders who could deepen our long-term sustainability and help us grow into new coverage areas.
Experience in development and/or journalism are welcome, but we’re most interested in any candidate who is an enthusiastic, driven self-starter and shares our mission of shedding light on ‘Who Runs New York.’ Nice-to-haves include strong writing skills and experience working in a fast-moving work environment.
Compensation and Trial Period
This is a full-time position that can be performed at whatever location is most convenient. New York Focus pays competitive wages for early-career journalists. Exact pay will vary by background and experience.
We expect that anyone hired for the position would start with a trial period of three months, with pay, which includes formal check-ins at the 4th and 8th week to discuss the transition to the role. The 8th week check-in will serve as the most likely time when we would hopefully be in the position to make a full hiring commitment.
To Apply
Please submit a resume and a cover letter explaining why you want to work with New York Focus, and how your skills could help sharpen our strategic vision and develop our long-term role as a publication holding the powerful accountable in New York.
Consistent with federal, state, and local law, we are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, Veteran status, or other protected category. We are committed to an inclusive workspace, and we strongly encourage applications from people of color who are excited about contributing to our mission.
By Sam Mellins
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