Editor / Executive Editor

The Executive Editor, working with the Managing Editor as the newsroom leadership team, will shape the next generation of multiple news and information products offered by Lookout Santa Cruz and Lookout more widely, applying and growing the Lookout Local journalism model, making sure we meet both our mission and business performance needs. At Lookout Local, we’ve figured out a bunch of things well
- real and early‑on community engagement, multi‑stream revenue, local advertising and bedrock breaking news‑to‑accountability through the day local journalism. And we appreciate the national recognition of our work from our Pulitzerto our fast‑ramp launch and model‑building in Oregon. But that’s just a beginning in Santa Cruz and in Eugene‑Springfield, and as we plot next communities to serve. For this position, we’re seeking a spirited, top editor/news product innovator ready to work with great colleagues to take Lookout Santa Cruz specifically and Lookouts overall to next levels of journalism, community service and revenue generation. We understand the fast‑evolving connections in that holy trinity, and believe that harnessing the latest tech/thinking (including mastering local AI application, on which we’ve laid a great foundation already) is fundamental to our future. At this point, we focus on three key types of products: site, app and newsletter, and this leader, working with both our senior team and newsroom will build on those — and what’s to come. At our two Lookouts, now approaching 40 strong people in number, we pride ourselves on being both fiercely mission‑driven and fiercely business‑driven, and know that only those local news organizations (like our friends and cohorts in the Knight Growth Challenge Fund, with Texas Tribune now the eighth member after we joined as the seventh) will prosper in the now‑faster changing ways all of us find and consume news. The ideal candidate possesses a good understanding of the differentiation of Lookout’s model and a passion for building atop it, with the well‑demonstrated experience to be successful at a high national quality level. Building on the successful, Pulitzer Prize‑winning Lookout Santa Cruz start of four years Builds on Lookout’s already impactful new product creations
- including Neighborhood Newsletters, Briefs, Story Maps, Events integrations and more
- proactively assesses, innovates and tests new ways of creating news and information that will serve and delight audiences. Working with the managing editor, focuses on the next phase of our coverage plans, as we increase staffing, leading to the updating of a 2025‑2026 community news and information plan. In this strategic content and product analysis, and product development, works as a member of Lookout’s overall senior leadership team as well as with its product and revenue teams as well. Patterned on Lookout’s highly successful fundraising, planning, hiring and deployment for Lookout Eugene‑Springfield, strategizes next markets. Serving as a prominent public face, with publisher‑like interaction, in the wider Santa Cruz County community and nationally Become a familiar face in civic and business circles, a company presence that augments what our correspondents, ad salespeople and community engagement people do. Include creating useful community partnerships, talks to civic groups, moderation of events, 1:1 lunches with elected, business and non‑profit leaders. Works with the managing editor and community and student engagement manager on a scheduled, steady, and strategic stream of Lookout Listens and issue‑oriented forums. Leads, with managing editor, next plans for development and training in the newsroom Creating a development program for journalists, individually, and collectively, setting up a steady cadence of learning/training programs. The executive editor role requires a demonstrated, collegial leader, with substantial newsroom management, well‑tested digital and audience experience, and one who excels in building further on both a set of products and a culture of excellence and collaboration. Working with the managing editor, who will direct the newsroom day to day, the ideal candidate both values Lookout’s early success and offers a vision of its next steps, steps that are both mission‑and business‑building. Deeply using audience analytics, the ideal candidate will proactively assess and recommend initiatives that do both, using emerging digital tools to their optimal points, and work closely with both the newsroom and Lookout’s senior team to advance quickly the work that must be done to push forward Lookout locally and nationally. Lead, along with the managing editor, a growing newsroom of skilled journalists, fostering a culture of excellence, innovation, collaboration and reader service. Become a key public presence of Lookout in the civic, business and non‑profit communities Mentor and develop journalistic talent, with programs of learning and training, ensuring high standa