Career Center

Position: Full-time exempt

Salary: $95,000-110,000 depending on experience

Deadline to apply: Open until filled

El Tímpano is seeking a hands-on, collaborative, and experienced editor to build and manage the operations of a newsroom producing impactful coverage with, for, and about the Bay Area’s Latino and Mayan immigrant communities.  

For four years, El Tímpano has earned recognition and inspired emulation across the field of local news for our investment in listening, developing trust, and designing approaches to reporting in collaboration with the Latino and Mayan immigrants we cover and serve. Through our award-winning community engagement strategies, El Tímpano has served thousands of Spanish-speaking immigrants in Oakland and across the Bay Area with actionable news and has produced community-powered stories reflecting voices that are often missing from local and national media coverage, civic conversations, and policy debates.

The Managing Editor will lead and manage a newsroom that leverages the power of robust community engagement and trust to produce journalism (primarily in English) that digs deep while also amplifying the voices of the 1 million Spanish-speaking immigrants who call the Bay Area home. As a key role in a small but growing organization, El Tímpano’s Managing Editor will be involved in story editing and even occasional reporting, in addition to managing newsroom operations. Their deft editing and mentorship will result in consequential accountability journalism on the issues that matter most to Latino and Mayan immigrants, utilizing El Tímpano’s digital platforms as well as partnerships with local and national media to reach wide, diverse, and invested audiences. They will implement processes and practices that ensure El Tímpano’s reporting is responsive to immigrant communities and is conducted in a way that prioritizes care, integrity, and service for marginalized community members as well as the wellbeing of our team.  

This is a leadership position of a growing nonprofit start-up. While El Tímpano is a remote-first workplace, this position will involve in-person activities in the communities El Tímpano covers and serves, and will be based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The position will report to El Tímpano’s Director. 

Duties & Responsibilities

• Guide the production of culturally competent reporting that centers the voices of Latino and Mayan immigrants, frames stories through a lens of systems and solutions, holds the powerful to account, and drives regional conversations 
• Lead the hiring process for an expanding newsroom, while building a network of freelance contributors
• Schedule, assign, and edit stories, and develop internal systems and structures to support story planning, publication, collaboration, and impact tracking
• Collaborate with El Tímpano’s Director to shape new editorial roles and to create newsroom processes and editorial guidelines that center those most impacted by our journalism and that maintain the highest standards of journalistic integrity
• Manage the newsroom’s administrative duties, including award submission, contracts, and reporting grants
• Foster a team culture of collaboration, innovation, growth, care, and creativity
• Occasionally serve as an inspiring ambassador of El Tímpano in speaking engagements with community stakeholders, funders, and peers
• Collaborate with the development team to raise funds for our journalism, and with the community engagement team to coordinate strategies and ensure our journalism is driven by the communities we cover and serve
• Like all El Tímpano team members, this position will be expected to take part in occasional in-person outreach and engagement activities

You’re a great fit if you…

• Are a newsroom leader with 7+ years of journalism or journalism-adjacent experience, at least 3 of which involve managing a diverse team, collaborating with internal and external peers, editing impactful journalism, and thinking outside the box. 
• Have solid news judgment, an excellent track record of narrative story editing, and an ability to edit with clarity, compassion, economy, and a systems lens. 
• Thrive in a start-up environment where you are expected to build things from scratch, learn and iterate as you go, collaborate with a team, and adapt as the organization grows and evolves.
• Are passionate about El Tímpano’s mission of informing, engaging, and amplifying the voices of Latino and Mayan immigrants, and have extensive experience covering and working within Latino immigrant communities. 
• Can demonstrate how you work to produce journalism that challenges stereotypes and cliches and does not cause harm.
• Have excellent interpersonal communication skills, including the ability to communicate respectfully and inclusively in diverse environments with colleagues, community members, and external peers. 
• Are just as passionate about fostering an equitable and healthy work environment as you are about producing award-winning journalism. Your leadership builds trust, fosters collaboration, and inspires colleagues to go the extra mile.

Some great candidates may not check all the boxes above, and may have valuable skills not included here. If that’s you, please don’t hesitate to apply and tell us why you would thrive in this role. If you have any questions in advance of applying for this position, we encourage you to reach out to Madeleine Bair, mbair[at]eltimpano[dot]org to address your questions via email or a brief call.