As a startup building a newsroom from scratch, the Tulsa Local News Initiative has the opportunity to draw from the best in the industry, discard the bad, and create new, innovative ways to center community information needs while producing excellent, impactful journalism. The Documenters Assignment Editor will be a critical part of the newsroom team, which will include service journalism and community reporters as well as beat reporters focused on government, education, criminal justice and economics. They will have the primary task of coordinating and managing deployment of Documenters, editing and reviewing the content produced from Documenter assignments, and writing a weekly “Public Meetings Report” summarizing Documenters notes from the week. They will work to ensure Documenters’ work is reflected in newsroom output (e.g., identifying opportunities in meeting coverage for stories/deeper reporting, identifying new civic tools, and identifying opportunities for first-person accounts from Documenters to accompany reporting). As needed, they will produce explainers and how-to videos and hold office hours to assist the Documenters community with the work of documenting. They will work on Documenters’ follow-up questions, including submitting public-record requests. They will lend an extra set of eyes to explainers, and will lead reporting that emerges from Documenters work.

The assignment editor will be part of a team, led by the deputy editor, that includes several beat reporters. The team’s overall goal will be to bring the voices of Tulsa communities into the newsroom, to advocate for residents’ information needs, and making news and information accessible to a variety of audiences.

The Tulsa Local News Initiative is a yet-to-be named startup nonprofit organization that has raised nearly $14 million so far in service of a vision to give everyone in Tulsa the local news they need. The newsroom will produce high-quality accountability journalism while working directly with residents to produce and distribute community reporting, employing an innovative model for local journalism that is directly responsive to local information needs. In addition to a team of editors and beat reporters, the Tulsa newsroom will have best-in-class community engagement expertise, multimedia production, dedicated capacity for service journalism and research, and Tulsa Documenters.

At TLNI, we value learning, curiosity and diverse perspectives. We are dedicated to equitable hiring and follow best practices to create an inclusive hiring process.

• Have an urgency to be responsive to community information needs
• Take personal responsibility for packaging Documenters’ work in ways that measurably serve audiences’ information needs on multiple platforms
• Ability to interact effectively with a diverse group of individuals internal and external to the newsroom
• Coordinate and manage deployment of Documenters
• Edit and review the content produced from Documenter assignments with support from a copy editor
• Write weekly “Public Meetings Report” summarizing Documenters notes and tweets and work collaboratively with Community team to produce the report in multiple formats
• Work with newsroom staff to ensure Documenters’ work is reflected in newsroom’s reporting output
• Create guides and videos to support Documenters in their work of documenting
• Lead reporting on issues that emerge from Documenters work 

• Demonstrated commitment to local, public service journalism
• Strong understanding and knowledge of local neighborhoods and communities and respect for the knowledge community members can bring to the newsroom
• An ability to be a supportive part of a team
• Interest in monitoring local government activities and source relevant records
• Have several years in relevant fields such as journalism, community organizing and/or political campaigning
• Can coordinate a diverse group of people and give skills-based feedback to Documenters before, during and after assignments
• Has a working knowledge of interviewing and multimedia techniques; ability to produce explainer-type videos
• Understands journalistic ethics
• Has a sharp news judgment
• Has strong communications skills
• Is detail-oriented and a multi-tasker;
• Is familiar with cloud-based database and content management tools (i.e. Google Docs).
• Flexible and entrepreneurial spirit—you can thrive in a startup environment where you are expected to learn as you go and think outside the box
• Ability to work evenings as needed
• Knowledge of community building best practices
• Interpersonal/communications skills - willing to negotiate and talk through issues in an honest and clear manner
• Ability to maintain confidence when working with sensitive information
• Ability to interact effectively with a diverse group of individuals internal and external to the newsroom
• Team player - help others and is supportive
• Practice a growth mindset, have the ability to see opportunity even in the midst of challenges

Salary is competitive and commensurate with experience. The salary range for this role is $50,000-70,000 with a generous benefits package