Growth Editor, Free Expression

Storyful; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 115,000 - 140,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Healthcare Plans

Paid Time Off

Retirement Plans

Education Benefits

Commuter Transit Program

Subscription Discounts

Employee Referral Program

Job summary

The Wall Street Journal seeks a Growth Editor for Free Expression, a daily newsletter focused on American life, politics, and culture. You will own the audience-growth strategy, turning Substack into a scalable engine while collaborating across editorial, audience, product, and marketing to expand reach.

Basing in the NYC office, you will drive acquisition, engagement, conversion, and retention, build audience franchises, and guide impact across Substack, site, and social toward a potential paid

Qualifications

• Significant experience in audience development, newsletter growth, or related field.
• Experience growing an audience on Substack or similar platform with familiarity of its features.
• Strong editorial judgment and ability to build durable reader relationships.
• Excellent writing, editing, packaging, and communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Own the Free Expression growth strategy, goals, and cadence to acquire, engage, convert, and retain readers, aiming for ~2,500 net-new Substack readers weekly.
• Make Free Expression native to Substack: manage homepage, Notes, comments, recommendations, cross-promotion, and community.
• Test new distribution channels and partnerships, turning success into a repeatable playbook.

Skills

Audience development

Newsletter growth

Digital publishing

Platform strategy

Analytical skills

Cross-functional collaboration

Editorial judgment

Writing & editing

Contributor/creator management

Tools

Substack platform

Analytics dashboards

Job description

About the Team:

The Wall Street Journal is a global news organization that provides leading news, information, commentary and analysis. The Wall Street Journal engages readers across print, digital, mobile, social, podcast and video. Building on its heritage as the preeminent source of global business and financial news, the Journal includes coverage of U.S. & world news, politics, arts, culture, lifestyle, sports, and health. It holds 38 Pulitzer Prizes for outstanding journalism. The Wall Street Journal is published by Dow Jones, a division of News Corp (Nasdaq: NWS, NWSA; ASX: NWS, NWSLV).

About the Role:

Free Expression is a daily newsletter on American life, politics, and culture from the Opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal. With over 100K highly engaged readers, we are looking for someone to build a direct audience relationship that starts with free reach and leads to paid value. The Growth Editor will own the audience-growth strategy for the newsletter, with particular responsibility for turning Substack into a scalable engine for acquisition and engagement. The role sits where editorial, audience, product, marketing, and contributor development meet, and is accountable for reaching, converting, and retaining new audiences well beyond the existing WSJ ecosystem while protecting the editorial distinctiveness and credibility that set Free Expression apart. This role works in our NYC office.

You Will:

• Own the Free Expression growth strategy — the plan, goals, and operating cadence for acquiring, engaging, converting, and retaining readers — building toward a target of roughly 2,500 net-new Substack readers per week.
• Make Free Expression native to Substack: own the homepage, Notes, comments, recommendations, cross-promotion, and community, and use recommendation swaps, restacks, cross-posting, and contributor-led promotion to compound reach.
• Test new distribution channels, partnerships, and audience segments, and turn what works into a repeatable playbook that can inform future Dow Jones newsletter products.
• Partner with Opinion editors and writers to sharpen the newsletter’s anchor themes and point of view, give each edition a clear reason to run that day, and build recurring franchises and publishing rhythms readers learn to anticipate.
• Identify high-potential contributors and help turn them into recognizable audience brands, with activation across bylines, promotion, community, audio, video, and live events.
• Track performance across Substack, the newsletter, the site, and social — list growth, acquisition source, engagement, conversion, and churn — and run experiments that improve content, packaging, cadence, and promotion.
• Judge growth by quality as well as volume, and work with analytics, product, marketing, and finance to connect audience gains to subscription outcomes, including the decision framework for a future paid model.

You Have:

• Significant experience in audience development, newsletter growth, digital publishing, creator media, platform strategy, or a related field.
• Demonstrated experience growing an audience on Substack or a comparable platform, with deep familiarity with its mechanics — recommendations, Notes, restacks, cross-promotion, comments, and community.
• Strong editorial judgment, including the ability to distinguish content that is merely popular from content that builds a durable reader relationship.
• Strong analytical skills and comfort working with audience data, dashboards, experimentation, and performance metrics.
• The ability to work effectively across editorial, product, marketing, analytics, and commercial teams without formal authority.
• Excellent writing, editing, packaging, and communication skills.
• Experience developing contributor-, creator-, or talent-led franchises.
• Experience connecting audience growth to subscription and retention outcomes.
• A genuine interest in independent voices, ideas, debate, and the role of journalism in a free society.

Our Benefits:

• Comprehensive Healthcare Plans
• Paid Time Off
• Retirement Plans
• Comprehensive Insurance Plans
• Lifestyle Programs & Wellness Resources
• Education Benefits
• Family Care Benefits & Caregiving Support
• Commuter Transit Program
• Subscription Discounts
• Employee Referral Program
• Financial Health Programs
• Cybersecurity Protection

Equal Opportunity Employer:

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, protected veteran status, disability status or any other protected characteristic under applicable law.

EEO/Disabled/Vets Reasonable Accommodation:

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodation for qualified individuals with disabilities in our job application and/or interview process.

Business Area: Dow Jones - Editorial

Union Status: Non-Union role

Job Category: Editorial/Journalism

Base Pay Range: $115,000 - $140,000

Dow Jones is a global provider of news and business information, delivering content to consumers and organizations around the world across multiple formats, including print, digital, mobile and live events. Dow Jones has produced unrivaled quality content for more than 130 years and today has one of the world’s largest newsgathering operations globally. It is home to leading publications and products including the flagship Wall Street Journal, America’s largest newspaper by paid circulation; Barron’s, MarketWatch, Mansion Global, Financial News, Dow Jones Risk & Compliance and Dow Jones Newswires. Dow Jones is a division of News Corp (Nasdaq: NWS, NWSA; ASX: NWS, NWSLV).