Colorado Bureau Editor

About The Center Square

The Center Square is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit national newswire service headquartered in Chicago with staff deployed across the country. We produce original, taxpayer-focused government accountability journalism for more than 2,000 local, state, and national media partners, reaching 141 million Americans daily.

Focus on the size, scope, cost, and effectiveness of government is our distinct lane, and has been the key to The Center Square's unprecedented growth as a U.S. news brand. At a time when news media is contracting, and media trust is waning, The Center Square is growing rapidly by providing original government accountability news that is well reported, fair, and focused on covering government for the people and holding those in power to account.

We call it The Center Square Way. It means we hold government accountable by showing people what their government is doing, what it costs them, and what it means for the taxpayers, businesses and communities where they live. Our reporters do not write opinion. Our editors do not tolerate it. We compete on accuracy, velocity and frequency — filing more stories, faster, with fewer errors than anyone else covering this beat. Every story goes through a backfield editing system designed to catch what other newsrooms miss. That’s not a slogan. It’s how we operate, every day, across every state we cover.

The Center Square has grown from a startup in 2019 to one of the most widely distributed newswire services in the country — because media partners trust our copy and readers trust our approach. We intend to keep earning that trust.

The Role

The Colorado state Editor is a working editor — hands on the keyboard, eyes on the region, judgment always engaged, and winning the day, every day. 

Colorado is the assignment. You and a Denver-based reporter will own our coverage footprint in the state, with particular focus on state government, Denver and Colorada Springs, and the statehouse activity and statewide and local policy developments that radiate from it. We need someone who is competitive, and wants to be first with the mission-focused stories that matter.

You’ll supervise and edit one reporter still to be recruited and hired, report and write daily on issues important to taxpayers, manage freelance contributors, and ensure our coverage across the state is sharp, timely and mission-focused every single day.

You'll participate in daily editorial planning, execute against short- and long-term coverage strategies, and push our content across multiple platforms. You’ll also promote our work to media partners in the state — because great journalism that nobody reads isn't journalism, it’s a diary.

Producing regular video content to distribute along multiple platforms also is vital to the job. The Center Square’s video strategy includes participating at least weekly in a daily live video show that promotes The Center Square’s expansive coverage of taxpayer-focused journalism across the U.S., recording interviews at the state capitol, city hall and elsewhere.

We're looking for passionate journalists who have government reporting and editing experience, and a strong interest and understanding of politics and public policy. The Center Square covers government from a taxpayers’ perspective, not from government’s perspective. We hold government officials accountable for their actions and decisions and inform our readers how those decisions affect them.

The Expectations of the Role

• Report on legislative and policy issues and their impact on taxpayers in Colorado. The Center Square covers issues from a taxpayer’s perspective, not from government’s perspective. We do original sourcing journalism, not press release journalism.
• Participate in daily planning meetings with other The Center Square journalists on the West Coast.Be a team player who collaborates well with other staffers.
• Work with The Center Square’s West Coast managing editor, who will mentor the editor on good daily journalism practices and on navigating public records and databases to ferret out waste, fraud and abuse.
• Report and write five stories a week while supervising and editing a reporter who will be expected to produce an additional 8 to 10 stories a week.
• Generate relevant story ideas daily, and discuss with managing editor.
• Cultivate trusted sources to provide leads on potential stories, including those inside and outside government, think tanks, academia, and the business community. Build a relevant source base and continue adding to it.
• Monitor the media landscape to identify popular topics and potential media partners.
• Other duties as assigned.

Location

You must live in Colorado, preferably in the Denver region. You can’t cover a state from a thousand miles away and do it well. We need boots on the ground and the ability to get to the state capitol and city hall as needed.

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The Center Square is competing for the trust of the American public every day. If you want to be part of a fast-moving, fast-growing organization committed to the highest ethical standards in the industry, we want to hear from you. The Center Square is an equal opportunity employer.