Summary:   

Signal Ohio is hiring a Cincinnati-based Community Journalism Director to establish and lead a community journalism program, which will include a new local affiliate of the award-winning Documenters program. Documenters, founded by City Bureau, designed and implemented in Ohio communities via Signal Ohio, trains and pays neighborhood residents to produce information in the public interest. This program is part of a movement that is reimagining how information can be accessed and shared in our communities.

We are looking for an effective team manager with experience in journalism and community engagement, or other fields that involve mobilizing people and information for the public good.

Your role will be to build an engaged community around local news and information reporting in Cincinnati and help people learn to use tools of journalism to become more engaged in their communities. The program you help to build will train residents to document public meetings, and participate in special reporting and information distribution projects, creating a powerful new resource that will strengthen the information ecosystem and civic engagement in the Greater
Cincinnati area.

If you have a track record of cultivating deep community relationships, you enjoy taking creative, iterative approaches to program design, and have a passion for organizing people to address big problems from the ground up, this role is for you. As part of the Signal Ohio network of newsrooms and the national Documenters Network, you will receive the full benefits of training, technology, and tools to get the program up and running. You will have the support of Signal Ohio, which operates successful Documenters programs in Akron and Cleveland, the American Journalism Project, and City Bureau to execute a vision for the local program.

About Signal Ohio:

Signal Ohio is a nonprofit organization with a vision to give everyone in Ohio the local news they need, starting with robust newsrooms in Akron and Cleveland. The newsrooms produce high-quality accountability journalism while working directly with residents to produce and distribute community reporting, employing innovative models for local journalism that are directly responsive to local information needs. In addition to a team of editors and beat reporters, the Akron and Cleveland newsrooms have community engagement expertise, multimedia production, and local Documenters programs, which train and pay residents to document local public meetings and participate in broader news gathering and distribution efforts.

Signal Ohio aims to be sustained by a diverse mix of revenue — generated by a shared statewide business and operations team — of local contributions, including through local philanthropy, corporate partnerships and audience support. This will ensure the organization is both independent and grounded in local needs.

SIGNAL CINCINNATI

The start of Signal Cincinnati follows an information needs assessment conducted by the American Journalism Project that found many Ohio residents feel they do not have adequate, relevant, and accessible information about their communities and the decisions that impact their daily lives.

As with all Signal newsrooms, the Cincinnati program’s top priority will be to earn the trust of the communities it serves through two-way relationships and an innovative community-led reporting model. After additional fundraising, these efforts will augment newsroom coverage and aid in story development.

Work will also provide information without barriers. Coverage will be distributed across multiple formats and platforms, without paywalls or subscription requirements, to broaden storytelling formats and engage a wide range of audiences, no matter their literacy level, language or Internet access.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Establish and manage a journalism community of practice in Cincinnati, including a Documenters program that recruits, trains, and compensates residents to participate in news gathering and distribution. You will have support from Signal Ohio Documenters sites, City Bureau, the American Journalism Project, and industry peers in the Documenters Network to get started.
• Be an advocate for community interests and needs; support Signal in its efforts to respond to wide ranging requests from residents.
• With Signal Ohio leadership, work towards launching Signal Cincinnati, a local, nonprofit newsroom serving Cincinnati, and work with this founding team to integrate principles of community journalism into daily operations.
• Develop an inclusive recruitment program to build, grow, and oversee a network of program participants who are engaged in taking community reporting assignments. Comparable programs recruit 200-300 participants in their first year, of which roughly 10% are actively taking assignments and covering 5-9 meetings per week.
• Train Documenters; complete fact-checking and approving community reporting on local government meetings; curate community reports for publishing; and identify a list of opportunities, questions, and ideas from community reporting that may warrant further investigation by the Cincinnati newsroom when it’s established.
• Lead the creation of products, such as an email newsletter or SMS updates, to share out work from Documenters and broader community journalism efforts.
• Host regular training sessions and office hours to help residents get comfortable with using Documenters tools and general reporting practices.
• Develop and manage special projects that engage Documenters to promote local knowledge of Cincinnati and its civic processes (see examples here and here).
• Apply an equity framework to programmatic decisions to ensure the Documenters site reflects the greatest need as it applies to race, gender and other demographics (see City Bureau’s Community Engagement Guidelines).
• Cultivate a network of local partners in media, community organizing, education, academia and government who are consistently using our website and Documenters.org as part of their regular work and sharing feedback with the Signal Ohio team.
• Work with Signal Ohio and City Bureau marketing and editorial staff to tell the story of the Documenters Network and make sure Documenters’ work reaches the people who can use it.

REQUIREMENTS:

• At least two years of experience in engagement journalism, community organizing, grassroots political campaigning or a related field
• At least two years of experience managing a team and/or leading projects where people with diverse backgrounds, perspectives and abilities feel they can do their best work
• A demonstrated commitment to equipping and organizing people toward collective action
• Impeccable and inclusive project planning and prioritization skills
• Strong verbal and written communication skills
• Ability to rally stakeholders and solve problems creatively and collaboratively
• Experience in a start-up environment
• High degree of flexibility, able to be self-directed and able pivot to develop creative solutions to organizational challenges
• Experience cultivating deep relationships, trust and solutions with a community (we know this can mean many things and want to hear how it manifests in your work)
• Ability to work a flexible schedule that may require some nights and weekends

Compensation and benefits

Full time with benefits package including health care, dental, vision, life insurance, and 401K match.

Salary: $85,000 – $100,000

Signal Ohio is dedicated to equal employment opportunities for all applicants and employees. Signal Ohio encourages people of all races, colors, national origins, ancestries, creeds, religions, genders, ages, disabilities, veteran status, sexual orientations, and marital statuses to apply.

Apply Using the form below