News Director, KUNC

AAJA25; Greeley (CO); On-site; USD 110,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

KUNC, Northern Colorado's public radio newsroom, seeks a seasoned News Director to guide a high-performing team through a period of focus, innovation, and audience growth. This senior role requires strong journalism instincts, daily production expertise, and a people-centered leadership style to empower staff and set clear expectations.

The News Director will shape priorities, communicate transparently, and build systems that support excellent multi-channel journalism across broadcast, web,

Qualifications

• Senior leadership role with daily production expertise.
• Ability to guide a newsroom through change with an editorial vision.
• Experience leading multi-platform journalism and audience-focused decisions.

Responsibilities

• Lead KUNC's 12-person newsroom with strong news judgment and ethical standards.
• Set editorial priorities for local and regional coverage.
• Develop editorial routines and planning systems for multi-platform distribution.
• Manage the newsroom department budget and staff development.
• Drive audience growth and partnerships through data-driven storytelling.

Skills

Leadership

Editorial Vision

Budget management

Audience analytics

Cross-platform

AI ethics

Staff development

Newsroom operations

Public service journalism

Education

Bachelor's degree in Journalism

Job description

URL Media
34-16 86th Street,Jackson Heights, New York,11372,United States
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Job Category: Radio,

Employment Type: Full time,

Posted: 08.05.2026

Job Description

About KUNC

At KUNC , our mission is simple: to serve the diverse communities of Northern Colorado by delivering independent, insightful, and inclusive journalism. We believe in the power of storytelling to foster understanding, empathy, and connection, and We're committed to producing content that reflects the voices and experiences of our region.

KUNC brings you the best in news, music, and culture from Northern Colorado and beyond. Since our founding in 1967, we've provided our listeners with quality programming that informs, entertains, and enriches their lives.

As a public radio station, KUNC is driven by a commitment to public service and the principles of journalism. Our team of experienced reporters, producers, and hosts work tirelessly to bring you the latest news and analysis on issues that matter most to our community. Whether it's local politics, environmental issues, or cultural events, you can count on KUNC to keep you informed and engaged.

The Opportunity

KUNC is seeking an experienced and collaborative News Director to guide a highly respected public media newsroom through an exciting period of focus, innovation, and audience growth.

This is a senior leadership role. In addition to strong journalism instincts and daily production expertise, the ideal candidate will bring a clear editorial vision, a people-centered approach to management, and a demonstrated ability to build effective systems that support excellent multi-channel journalism. Successful candidates will bring experience leading meaningful, forward-looking change in a newsroom or content organization. They are comfortable leading in all directions such as supporting staff, collaborating across teams, and managing up, and are equally skilled at empowering their team while setting clear, consistent expectations.

The News Director will play a key role in setting priorities, communicating clearly, and creating a supportive and accountable environment where staff can thrive. This person will strengthen KUNC's journalism across platforms while expanding how audiences connect with our work.

The News Director will ensure KUNC produces timely journalism that gives audiences something they cannot easily get elsewhere: humanity, accountability, local knowledge, trusted explanation, and a clear sense of why the story matters. KUNC's journalism should explain, connect, verify, and deepen public understanding of how decisions, systems, policies, culture, economy, environment, and community change affect people in Northern Colorado.

Job Requirements

Key responsibilities

• Lead KUNC's 12-person newsroom in daily news operations with excellent news judgment, strong ethical standards, and a clear commitment to trusted, independent public service journalism.
• Develop editorial routines and implement planning systems that support strong story generation, sharp focus, distinctive storytelling, deeper sourcing, clear digital presentation, and intentional distribution across multiple platforms with a digital-first lens.
• Set editorial priorities for local and regional coverage, using KUNC's strategic plan, audience needs, community value, opportunities for growth, membership base and ratings/data.
• Set clear expectations for when a story belongs in a newscast, when it needs a fuller feature or enterprise approach, how it should lead digitally, and when it should be distributed across multiple platforms.
• Ensure KUNC's journalism reflects the communities it serves with accuracy, fairness, relevance, inclusion, and public impact.
• Maintain and enforce high standards for reporting, writing, editing, audio production, digital publishing, sourcing, ethics, and editorial independence. Make clear editorial choices about what KUNC should cover, pivot away from, and where the newsroom can provide the most value.
• Analyze and value strategic partnerships.
• Actively use audience data, KPIs, platform performance, and community feedback to regularly guide story planning, publishing decisions, distribution strategy, and workflow improvements.
• Treat broadcast, web, newsletters, podcasts, social media, streaming, and community events as connected parts of one journalism strategy.
• Develop, manage and monitor the newsroom department budget covering 12 staff members, freelancers and newsroom resources.
• Make thoughtful budget-informed decisions about freelance support, travel, training, equipment, special projects, partnerships, and editorial priorities.
• Track overall expenses, project expenses, plan for department needs, and communicate budget opportunities or concerns to the President & CEO.
• Lead meaningful and strategic newsroom change with clarity, empathy, accountability, and follow-through.
• Build a digital-first pitch-to-publish workflow to maximize story development and reach to both online and radio audiences.
• Manage and lead adoption of newsroom workflows for story planning, assignment, editing, publishing, communication, breaking news response, project management, and cross-platform distribution.
• Inspire staff to adopt new tools, expectations, routines, formats, and performance standards.
• Apply experience with using AI ethically in reporting and analysis.
• Create a newsroom culture that values experimentation, learning, accountability, collaboration, and steady improvement.
• Supervise, coach, and develop newsroom staff and other content workers as assigned.
• Set clear expectations, provide regular feedback, conduct performance conversations, support professional development, and address performance concerns in a timely and appropriate manner.
• Deliver on measurable department goals, editorial expectations, reporter output goals, publishing targets, productivity benchmarks, and performance indicators.
• Address conflict professionally and constructively, including interpersonal tensions, workflow problems,