Audience and Partnerships Editor – Deep South Today Investigative Center

Reports to: Director, Audience Engagement

Location:  Flexible within the Deep South, preferably Louisiana or Mississippi

Overview

Deep South Today — the nonprofit newsroom network that includes Mississippi Today in Jackson, Verite News in New Orleans, and The Current in Lafayette — launched a first-of-its-kind partnership with The New York Times to expand investigative journalism across the Deep South. 

The Deep South Today Investigative Reporting Center aims to produce high-impact journalism that holds powerful people and institutions accountable, digging deep into the systems and decisions shaping life in the Deep South. We are seeking a dedicated Audience and Partnerships Editor to ensure our investigative  journalism reaches communities across the Deep South. 

About the role

The Audience and Partnerships Editor role sits at the intersection of editorial judgment and evidence — collaborative, rigorous in approach, and focused on measurable outcomes. You will work closely with the Director of Audience Engagement and the Lead Editor for the Investigative Reporting Center to turn insights into actionable recommendations and build repeatable audience practices to maximize the reach and engagement of our investigative stories. Success in this role requires the ability to enthusiastically coordinate with multiple partners and deliver on three core job functions listed below. The ideal candidate will have 5+ years of direct experience and is open to working weekends, as required. 

Why this role matters:  Investigations and deeply reported pieces that can shape lives, communities, and policies require significant time and resources. As the Investigative Center ramps up its output, strategic distribution partnerships will be critical to ensure these deeply reported pieces reach new audiences beyond our traditional digital platforms. Sitting within our centralized Audience Hub, this role will be key to amplifying the reach of our high-impact journalism and converting new audiences to engaged readers and future supporters. By cultivating external relationships with nonprofits, newsrooms, schools, libraries, churches, community centers, even influencers, you will multiply our distribution capabilities and alleviate operational bottlenecks for our existing Audience Editors seated within our local newsrooms. 

Key Responsibilities

Co-Publishing & Community Distribution 

• Actively secure partners and external newsrooms to co-publish, republish and distribute DST Investigative Center, DST Studios and local newsrooms stories, social posts and video content. 

• Identify trusted information stewards, including community leaders, organizers, creators, influencers and cultivate vital relationships to maximize the distribution of our journalism to new audiences and get our reporting directly into the hands of most-impacted communities. 

• Identify opportunities for building mentions and citations for our reporting and Investigative Center reporters, including TV interviews. 

• Own the operations for distribution of the Center’s journalism and all relevant assets to newsroom partners and stewards in a timely manner that builds trust and strengthens stakeholder partnerships.

• Serve as a specialized, horizontal support role across the entire Deep South Today network for distribution of journalism through editorial partnerships.

SEO, Site Curation, Socials & Content Repackaging 

• Serve as the editorial curator for the Deep South Today website, ensuring stories and videos published on individual local newsroom sites are seamlessly aggregated and highlighted in one unified digital hub. 

• Ensure stories are SEO optimized, tagged and curated to display interests, geographic coverage, and diversity in communities. 

• Be responsible for social distribution for some of the Hub’s investigative projects, in collaboration with newsroom Audience Editors.

• Collaborate with reporters and editors at the DST Investigations Hub to create repackaged ancillary reporting packages including but not limited to explainers, reader guides, listicles, quizzes, Q&As, and visual formats.

• Develop calls-to-action to drive reader participation and interaction across platforms.

• Act as the Hub’s point of contact with the DST Support team for graphics, technical and audience support. 

Analytics & Audience Intelligence

• Drive content performance tracking using Google Analytics, HootSuite  and related tools for Hub-specific stories. 

• Share audience insights regularly to inform editorial decisions across the newsroom, story ideas/themes, based on reader behavior, platform trends, and audience data.

• Interpret reader behavior and gather continuous audience feedback to shape coverage and strategy.

• Create and manage an editorial content calendar in coordination with the Editor for Investigations for ensuring audience strategy is built into story planning from the start and Audience Editors at local newsrooms and partner newsrooms are aware of upcoming stories, themes for collaborations on socials, web or newsletters. 

• Stay current on platform trends and experiment with emerging formats, including video, audio, and AI-assisted distribution tools.

What success looks like in this role:

• Demonstrable growth in key partnerships established across the Deep South. 

• Demonstrable increase in readership for Investigative Center’s reporting across the Deep South.

• Audience thinking and analytics is demonstrably embedded in editorial workflow. 

• Analytics infrastructure in place to measure the success of Hub stories and investigations. 

What you’ll get

• Salary: $80,000 - $90,000, commensurate with experience.

• Highly competitive benefits package, including medical insurance and options for vision and dental insurance.

• 29 days paid time off.

• Up to 12 weeks of parental family leave, with return-to-work flexibility.

• Simple IRA with 3 percent company matching. Group-term life insurance provided to employees ($15,000 policy).

• Support for professional training and attending industry conferences.

How to Apply:

We’re committed to building an inclusive newsroom that represents the people and communities we serve. We especially encourage members of traditionally underrepresented communities to apply for this position, including women, people of color, LGBTQ people and people who are differently abled.