Managing Editor (Santa Cruz)

Lookout Local; Santa Cruz (CA); On-site; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, optical benefits

401(k) with matching

Stock options

Job summary

Lookout Santa Cruz, a community-focused newsroom, seeks a Managing Editor to drive editorial excellence across coverage of Santa Cruz County and the surrounding region. You will lead reporters, shape the enterprise and beat coverage, and ensure high-quality, nonpartisan reporting in a fast-paced, digital-first environment.

The role demands exceptional news judgment, strong editing, and a proven ability to coach reporters to produce ambitious, high-impact journalism seven days a week.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of journalism experience, including 3+ years in editing or newsroom leadership.
• Proven track record elevating reporters across multiple beats.
• Experience managing reporters and developing talent.
• Strong news judgment, story sense, and editorial instincts.
• Line-editing skills to bring clarity, structure, and authority to complex stories.
• Fluency in digital-first journalism and content management systems.

Responsibilities

• Set daily and long-term editorial agenda with executive editor.
• Lead and manage a team of reporters across beats, from idea to publication.
• Edit stories with rigor, ensuring clarity, depth, fairness, and distinctiveness.
• Coach reporters to elevate reporting and produce high-impact journalism.
• Foster a culture of accountability, creativity, and continuous newsroom improvement.
• Drive enterprise, investigative, and beat coverage that meets audience needs.
• Ensure coverage reflects Santa Cruz County’s diversity and engages the community.
• Uphold accuracy, fairness, and independence in all content.

Skills

Editorial leadership

News judgment

Line editing

Team management

Digital-first

Story ideation

Coaching reporters

Multimedia storytelling

Tools

Newspack CMS

CMS

Data journalism

Job description

About Lookout Santa Cruz

Lookout Santa Cruz has successfully become the primary news medium for the people of Santa Cruz County, reaching about 60% of the adults in the county each month. We’ve established ourselves, and our model, as a full-service very good community newspaper that happens to be digital. We cover all the topics that matter to our readers, from government and education coverage to environment and health, and food and the arts. We’ve established ourselves as a go-to source of breaking news and accountability reporting, increasing our impact year-by-year. Lookout Santa Cruz won the 2024 Pulitzer for Breaking News, and Lookout’s fiercely mission-driven, business-driven model is winning wide national notice. Check out our network page: https://lookout.co/network.

Our workplaces are in-person, in-community, collaborative and collegial. We are building a diverse, highly skilled and mission-driven group of journalists, community builders and business people intent on maintaining our culture of learning, growth and community service.

About the role

The Managing Editor is a central newsroom leader responsible for driving editorial excellence across Lookout Santa Cruz’s coverage of Santa Cruz County and, secondarily, the surrounding region. This role requires a proven editor with a track record of elevating ambitious journalism and leading teams of reporters across multiple beats to produce distinctive, high-impact work.

The ideal candidate brings exceptional news judgment, sophisticated story ideation, and rigorous line editing skills — along with a demonstrated ability to coach reporters to do their best work. Just as important, this editor thrives in a fast-paced, digital-first environment and is deeply committed to building a consistently excellent, seven-day-a-week report.

At Lookout, excellence is not occasional — it is expected throughout the day, every day. We serve readers with a mix of investigative and accountability reporting, authoritative beat coverage, breaking news, and service journalism that answers real community questions. The Managing Editor ensures that this work meets a high bar for relevance, clarity, and impact.

We prioritize reporting that connects the dots, explains complex issues, and delivers insight with authority and precision. Whether a story is 500 or 2,500 words, it should be deeply reported, well-sourced, and clearly written. We embrace a range of formats — from narrative and explanatory stories to Q&As, reader-driven formats, and multimedia — always matching the format to the journalism.

Responsibilities

• Editorial Leadership & Team Development
• • Work with the Executive Editor to set the daily and long-term editorial agenda.
  • Lead and manage a team of reporters covering a range of beats, providing clear direction from idea generation through publication.
  • Edit stories with rigor and precision, ensuring clarity, depth, fairness, and distinctiveness.
  • Coach reporters to elevate their reporting, sharpen their focus, and produce ambitious, high-impact journalism.
  • Foster a culture of accountability, creativity, and continuous improvement across the newsroom.
• Story Ideation & Execution
• • Drive a strong pipeline of enterprise, investigative, and beat-driven stories.
  • Ensure daily coverage is urgent, relevant, and aligned with audience needs.
  • Elevate storytelling through structure, framing, and the use of compelling supporting elements (data, visuals, multimedia).
  • Maintain high standards for sourcing, reporting depth, and narrative clarity.
• Community-Centered Journalism
• • Ensure coverage reflects and engages the full diversity of Santa Cruz County.
  • Work with reporters to surface community concerns, questions, and undercovered issues.
  • Collaborate on audience engagement efforts, using feedback and insights to inform coverage.
• Standards & Trust
• • Uphold the highest standards of accuracy, fairness, and independence.
  • Ensure all content is nonpartisan, transparent, and trustworthy.
  • Maintain consistency in voice, tone, and editorial quality across the report.
• Innovation & Digital Execution
• • Embrace and advance digital-first storytelling, distribution, and audience strategies.
  • Work closely with product and audience teams to optimize reach and impact.
  • Use modern tools and platforms to enhance reporting, editing, and presentation.
  • Experiment thoughtfully with new formats, including video and reader-driven journalism.

Qualifications

• At least 7+ years of journalism experience, including 3+ years in a significant editing or newsroom leadership role.
• A proven track record of journalistic excellence, particularly in editing and elevating reporters across multiple beats.
• Demonstrated success leading teams to produce impactful enterprise, investigative, and beat reporting.
• Exceptional news judgment, story sense, and editorial instincts.
• Strong line-editing skills, with the ability to bring clarity, structure, and authority to complex stories.
• Experience managing reporters, providing constructive feedback, and developing talent.
• Deep understanding of — or ability to quickly immerse in — Santa Cruz County and its communities.
• Fluency in digital-first journalism and content management systems (Newspack or similar).
• Ability to balance speed with quality in a deadline-driven environment.
• Commitment to inclusive, community-centered journalism.
• Comfort working in a startup environment that values agility, collaboration, and innovation.
• Strong visual and storytelling instincts, with the ability to collaborate on multimedia presentation.

Pluses:

• Bilingual skills
• Experience with data journalism
• Audio/video production experience

What We Offer:

• Competitive salary and performance-based incentives.
• Full-time benefits include highly competitive medical, dental, and optical benefits, and 401(k) with matching.
• Good PTO allowances
• Stock options in our growing company
• An opportunity to make a significant impact on and contribute to the revival of local journalism.
• A collaborative and mission-driven work environment.