Page-One Editor: Quick-Turn Accountability Chief

Society for Scholarly Publishing; Baltimore (MD); On-site; USD 85,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

The Baltimore Sun is seeking a sharp, ambitious Senior Editor/Page One to lead the identification, development and elevation of the newsroom's most consequential journalism. This hands-on editor will collaborate across desks, guiding reporters to deliver enterprise and accountability stories with a digital-first presentation.

The role requires exceptional news judgment, strong accountability instincts and the ability to uncover stories quickly—often within hours or days—while maintaining high

Qualifications

• Significant professional journalism experience, ideally including both reporting and editing.
• Exceptional news judgment and the ability to recognize consequential stories quickly.
• Strong accountability and investigative instincts.
• Experience working with public records, government documents, data, or other primary-source reporting.
• Excellent structural and line-editing skills.
• The ability to diagnose reporting gaps and clearly identify what additional work is needed.
• Strong breaking-news instincts and comfort making decisions under deadline pressure.
• A record of generating original journalism rather than relying primarily on scheduled events or outside pitches.
• Demonstrated curiosity about AI, emerging technology and more efficient approaches to reporting and editing.
• Strong understanding of sourcing, verification, fairness, attribution and journalistic ethics.

Responsibilities

• Identify the strongest journalism across The Sun's daily report and determine which stories have the potential for prominent digital and Page One treatment.
• Work with reporters and assignment editors to determine what additional reporting, sourcing, documentation, context or framing can elevate promising stories.
• Recognize important news quickly - including significant developments that may be buried in press conferences, government meetings, reports, audits, budgets, court filings and public records.
• Find the larger accountability story behind daily developments.
• Develop quick-turn accountability and investigative work that can be reported in hours or days rather than reserving enterprise journalism for long-term projects.
• Look for opportunities involving government spending, contracts, taxes, development, public safety, education, regulatory failures, institutional performance, conflicts of interest, promises versus results and other matters of significant public consequence.
• Ask who made decisions, who benefited, who paid, what went wrong, and whether leaders and institutions delivered what they promised.
• Help reporters follow money through budgets, contracts, grants, nonprofits, development agreements, campaign finance records, settlements and other public and private spending.
• Identify reporting holes before publication, including missing records, sources, data, context, responses, relevant history or evidence.
• Challenge assumptions and official narratives regardless of their source and ensure conclusions are supported by reporting.
• Help reporters and editors identify meaningful follow-up stories and prevent consequential journalism from becoming one-day coverage.
• Generate original story ideas and help develop reporting plans for executing them quickly.
• Edit high-priority stories for reporting, structure, fairness, accuracy, clarity and impact.
• Assist in directing major breaking news, including determining what can be published immediately, what needs additional verification and what reporters should pursue next.
• Help coordinate newsroom-wide coverage when major stories cross traditional beats or departments.
• Work closely with audience, visuals and other newsroom teams to ensure our strongest journalism is presented effectively and reaches the largest appropriate audience.

Skills

News judgment

Editorial editing

Public records

AI awareness

Deadline pressure

Job description

The Baltimore Sun is seeking a sharp, ambitious Senior Editor/Page One to lead the identification, development and elevation of the newsroom's most consequential journalism. This hands-on editor will collaborate across desks, guiding reporters to deliver enterprise and accountability stories with a digital-first presentation.

The role requires exceptional news judgment, strong accountability instincts and the ability to uncover stories quickly—often within hours or days—while maintaining high