Managing Editor, Community + Platforms

About Chicago Public Media Chicago Public Media is one of the nation’s largest local nonprofit news organizations. Home to WBEZ 91.5FM, the Chicago Sun-Times, and Vocalo. Chicago Public Media reaches more than 3.3 million people weekly across broadcast, print, and digital platforms. As a mission-driven organization, we aspire to be the most trusted news source Chicagoans turn to for understanding the people, events, and ideas shaping our community. Chicago Public Media is a 100% community-funded newsroom powered by nearly 97,000 members whose support makes our journalism possible. This sustained community investment helped drive nationally recognized work in 2025, including 29 awards from esteemed organizations, including the Public Media Journalists Association, the Edward R. Murrow Awards, and the National Association of Black Journalists. We believe independent journalism is essential to a healthy democracy and that access to objective, fact-based news is a right for every citizen. We serve the public interest by creating diverse content that informs and enriches our community, supported by a dedicated staff of approximately 250 professionals. For more information, please see the Chicago Public Media Annual Report . 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 experime…