Wisconsin Watch is seeking a versatile digital producer to support our editorial operations. This person will be responsible for the production and distribution of Wisconsin Watch editorial content online and to our statewide and national news partners, as well as tracking where our stories appear.
This position will report to the Associate Director responsible for product and audience, and will work collaboratively with the rest of the editorial, audience and membership teams.
We are seeking a staff member who can work both independently and as part of a team, who has strong news judgment, extreme attention to detail, a healthy appreciation for deadlines, and a high standard of journalistic integrity. This is a key position that controls the flow of our copy and content to a variety of platforms. You may also help with posting to social media platforms as needed.
You will also work closely with our membership director to track where our stories appear online and in print, and will maintain our robust tracking spreadsheet which helps us produce reports to the public and our funders.
Over the course of the day, the person in this role may work as a copy editor, news editor, web producer, assistant photo editor or social media editor. You will attend editorial planning meetings, closely read and suggest headlines, pay attention to photo captions, think critically about how photos and text work together, track pickups of our work by other news outlets, assist with preparing metrics summaries, and challenge us to seek greater diversity in our content and coverage. You will prepare our stories – and partner stories – for distribution on a variety of platforms, produce stories in WordPress for our site, assist with SEO and a linking strategy on our site, help update and manage our homepage, produce and send out story alerts in MailChimp, post to social media, and other tasks as assigned.
Specific duties include but are not limited to:
- Preparing and publishing original and partner stories and photos on our WordPress-based website and distributing to our media partners
- Sharing content on third-party publishing platforms
- Distributing and publishing recurring newsletters and columns.
- Keeping Audio stories list updated and add audio to Fireside platform
- Keeping the story tracker spreadsheet up to date
- Keeping our Source Diversity tracking workflow up to date
- Consulting with the Associate Director to improve editorial workflow
- Other tasks as assigned
Skills:
If you have some, but not all of these qualifications, we still encourage you to apply!
- Experience working in a digital news environment, including with text and photos
- Work comfortably and quickly in WordPress and Google Workspace
- Be able to quickly learn a variety of digital platforms as needed to work with news partners
- Be comfortable working with experienced as well as early-career journalists.
- Be fluent in spoken and written English.
- Familiarity with AP style
Bonus skills:
- Ability to speak a second language other than English.
- Ability to produce data visualizations and graphics
- Familiarity with Wisconsin, its history and its politics.
Location:
Flexible within Wisconsin, but ideally close enough to Madison to work occasionally in-person with the editorial team. We are a flexible workplace that allows working from home, but we recognize the benefit of working together in-person and strive to strike a healthy balance between the two.
Salary:
$47,500
Benefits:
Generous vacation (five weeks) plus holiday time (six days of your choosing), paid sick days, 12 week paid family and caregiver leave, subsidized medical and dental premiums, vision coverage, short term & long term disability, on-demand telehealth, $300/year transportation allowance and self-funded 403(b) retirement plan.
To apply:
Please fill out and submit this form, which will require you to submit a resume and list of references with their contact information. Deadline is July 7, 2023.
Start date:
Mid-late August 2023. Ideally by August 21.
Wisconsin Watch embraces anti-racism, diversity and inclusiveness in its journalism, training activities, hiring practices and workplace operations. The complex issues we face as a society require respect for different viewpoints. Race, class, generation, gender and geography all affect point of view. We especially encourage members of traditionally underrepresented communities to apply, including women, people of color, LGBTQ+ people and people with disabilities.
If you’d like to chat about the job before applying, contact Associate Director Coburn Dukehart at cdukehart@wisconsinwatch.org.
About us:
Wisconsin Watch is a nonpartisan, independent nonprofit with offices at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and in Milwaukee at Marquette University.
Our mission is to increase the quality, quantity and understanding of investigative journalism to foster an informed citizenry and strengthen democracy.
Our multimedia journalism digs into undercovered issues, documents inequitable and failing systems, puts findings into regional and national contexts and explores potential solutions. We aim to spark impact that improves people’s lives and holds power to account.
Our staff trains diverse groups of current and future investigative journalists and entrepreneurs through workshops, internships and fellowships, mentoring and collaborations with journalism classes and news organizations. And we share information about journalistic practices, ethics and impact with the public.
Wisconsin Watch’s reports are published at WisconsinWatch.org, and content is made available at no charge to the public and to news organizations through our own distribution system. We are partners with the nonprofit Milwaukee Neighborhood News service, and regularly share editorial resources across newsrooms.
In 2022, Wisconsin Watch produced 65 major reports that were published or cited by more than 280 news outlets in Wisconsin and 18 states, Washington D.C., and 12 countries, reaching an estimated audience of more than 47 million.
Wisconsin Watch has won dozens of national, regional and state awards from the Milwaukee Press Club, the Associated Press Media Editors and the Society of Professional Journalists and finalist awards from Investigative Reporters and Editors, the Local Independent Online News Association and The Eppys as well as regional Edward R. Murrow Awards.
We’re a flexible, fun workplace that creates important and impactful work.
And we’re a rapidly growing organization, recently chosen to receive a $1.4 million investment from the American Journalism Project to support our efforts with Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and our joint News414 service to reshape the local news ecosystem across Wisconsin. We also are teaming up with five other news organizations in the NEW (Northeast Wisconsin) News Lab to strengthen local news, a pillar of our democracy.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
