Audience Editor, Video Platforms

The Guardian is a global news organization that delivers fearless, independent journalism. From breaking news and award-winning investigations to in-depth coverage of technology, sports, film, culture, and lifestyle, the Guardian offers a global view that deepens our audiences' understanding of America and the world.

Headquartered in New York City, Guardian US is an entirely digital operation that seeks to engage US readers by combining the Guardian's international coverage with US voices and expertise. Core coverage areas include US politics, technology, the climate emergency, economic and racial inequality, health, sports, culture, and more. Guardian US launched in 2011 and has bureaus in New York, Washington DC, New Orleans, and Los Angeles. The Guardian is an independently owned, mission-driven organization funded by readers around the globe.

It's the talent, energy, and commitment our people bring to The Guardian that makes us who we are. Across our business, we have some of the most creative thinkers in media and beyond, award-winning journalists, cutting-edge commercial teams, digital talent, and more.
As the Audience Editor, Video Platforms for the Guardian’s US office, you will pursue ambitious and data-informed off-platform channel growth in line with editorial values, with a particular focus on YouTube. 
Department: Editorial
Reports to: VP audience and strategy (US) and Global head of audience (with a dotted line to Partnerships Director)
Location: New York, NY
Hybrid/Remote/In-Person: Hybrid 
Terms and conditions: Five-day week. 12-month FTC or internal staff secondment
Annual Salary: $110,000 - $115,000
Responsibilities

• In partnership with the US audience team and channel managers globally, help develop and execute a YouTube-first content strategy that leverages shortform and longform video and community engagement features to deepen audience loyalty and drive channel growth.
• Manage content calendars, including integration of comms, marketing, and commercial messaging to ensure balance of output is in line with high level strategic aims
• Help ensure Guardian journalism is presented in the right format on the right platform at the right time
• Identify new formats and opportunities for the Guardian to reach new audiences and build communities
• Analyse the off-platform performance of our journalism, providing feedback to teams about what has worked well and what could be better
• Pursue responsible channel growth, optimising for engagement and affinity
• Algorithm analysis, keyword/SEO optimisation, and title/image optimisation
• Track topic and format trends and monitor competitive positioning
• Ensure off-platform journalism meets style and reflects Guardian values
• Optimize videos through rigorous A/B testing across headlines, imagery and metadata
• Grow the YouTube and social audiences to new high-priority channels, including our new video podcast, Stateside, and Guardian soccer

Key contacts and relationships (internal and external)

Highly collaborative role working across multiple teams within the organisation, including but not limited to Audience teams (US, UK, Australia), Social teams, Community team, Platform partnerships team, Marketing, Communications, Digital editors, Head of video and the Berger programme team.

Qualifications

Strong understanding of:

• Guardian brand
• Audience growth strategies
• Formats that perform natively on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram 
• Video-first platform algorithms
• Retention curves, click through rate, engagement rate and watch time
• An understanding of the evolving ways people consume news video on and off platform.
• Value of community building and affinity
   

Strong experience of:

• Building content calendars
• Identifying repeatable formats and series
• Turning learnings from metrics into actions
• Working collaboratively with brand partnerships
• Integrating ads and comms with off-platform journalism
• Optimising for monetisation
• Proven ability to use data to inform decision-making
• Running experiments around AB testing story structure, format and cadence
• Ideally, you’ll have a demonstrable ability to bring a diverse perspective to this role
   

Skills and behaviours
 

• Collaborative, open and inclusive in approach, able to build relations with people at all levels, both internally and externally 
• Comfortable engaging with analytics to take a data-informed approach to decision-making
• Strong editorial judgment
• Willingness to embrace a visual, multi-format approach and think beyond text at the point of commission.
• Ability to work, independently, under pressure and prioritise to meet tight deadlines whilst maintaining a high level of accuracy.
• Enthusiastic about experimenting with new formats and ways of reaching audiences.
• Understanding of audience needs and behaviour across different platforms. 
• Open to learning new skills and adaptable in applying your existing expertise in new ways.
• Keen to innovate and experiment in your daily work, seeing every outcome as a chance to learn and improve.
• Knowledge of our values: honesty, integrity, courage, fairness, and a sense of duty to the reader and the community. 
   

How to apply

We know there are great candidates who might not check all these boxes or who possess important skills we haven’t thought of. If that’s you, we encourage you to apply and tell us about yourself.

All candidates interested in applying should upload a resume and cover letter.  

All roles at the Guardian are open for everybody to apply. It is important to us that you feel supported and comfortable throughout your recruitment process, in order to perform your best. Please let us know if there are any changes we could make to the application process to make it easier and more comfortable for you. Please email the recruiter listed on the job posting or at [email protected] to discuss further so we can work with you to support you through your application.

Compensation and benefits

• 25 days of vacation leave in addition to 12 company holidays
• Unlimited sick time
• Employee Assistance Programs
• 401(k) Match
• Subsidized healthcare coverage including medical, vision, and dental
• Medical and Dependent Flexible Spending Accounts
• Generous parental leave with 100% pay
• Long Term and Short Term Disability insurance 
• Life insurance 
• Commuter benefits 
• Wellhub
• Work/Life balance: Flexible hybrid schedule 
   

Culture & wellbeing

We want everyone to feel like they belong at the Guardian and we champion diversity of thought. You will also have the opportunity to hear unique insight from our journalists in our morning conference, a live discussion on the news story of the day. 

We offer great tools to help you prioritize your wellbeing including access to Employee Assistance Programs. 

Learning & development

We encourage personal and professional growth. Employees have access to a broad range of tools and solutions, and we are happy to support the pursuit of professional qualifications through vocational courses and apprenticeships.

Sustainability

Our goal is to become an environmentally regenerative company and we have signed up to a sustainability vision and strategy to reach it. Find more information about sustainability at GNM here.

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The Guardian is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of age, color, national origin, ethnic origin, citizenship status, disability, race, religion, creed, gender, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, marital status, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law in its employment policies. In addition, the Guardian will provide reasonable accommodation for qualified individuals with disabilities.

We value and respect all differences (seen and unseen) in all people at the Guardian. We aspire to have inclusive working experiences and an environment that reflects the audience we serve, where our people have equal access to career development opportunities, their voices are heard and can contribute to our future.