COMPANY
AccuWeather, recognized and documented as the most accurate source of weather forecasts and warnings in the world, has saved tens of thousands of lives, prevented hundreds of thousands of injuries and tens of billions of dollars in property damage. With global headquarters in State College, Pennsylvania, and other offices around the world, AccuWeather serves more than 1.5 billion people daily to help them plan their lives and get more out of their day through digital media properties, such as AccuWeather.com and mobile, as well as radio, television, newspapers, and the 24/7 AccuWeather Network channel and AccuWeather NOW streaming service. AccuWeather serves more than half of Fortune 500 companies and thousands of businesses globally. Additionally, AccuWeather produces and distributes news, weather content, and video for more than 180,000 third-party websites. Among AccuWeather’s many innovative and award-winning features available free to the public are MinuteCast® Minute by Minute™ forecasts with Superior Accuracy ™, the patented AccuWeather RealFeel® Temperature, and AccuWeather RealImpact™ Scale for Hurricanes.
Dr. Joel N. Myers, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, established AccuWeather in 1962 and is considered the “father of modern commercial meteorology.” Dr. Myers, a leading creative thinker and visionary, has been named “the most accurate man in weather” by The New York Times and one of the top entrepreneurs in American history by Entrepreneur’s Encyclopedia of Entrepreneurs.
SUMMARY
The Front Page Digital Editor entry-level position is a career for somebody who has a great eye for news, features, and weather forecast stories and a deep understanding of how to make audiences engage with those stories. The successful candidate in this role will be an excellent headline writer, have a strong visual sense and photo editing experience. We are also looking for something who has knowledge of SEO best practices, a journalistic sense of narrative storytelling and an understanding of how to add details to a story to make it more promotable and engaging in the various places a story will appear.
An in-depth understanding of analytics tools is critical for this role, specifically being able to effectively use Chartbeat and Google Analytics data to inform real-time and long-term decision making. The successful candidate will also have homepage editing experience or the equivalent of editing a homepage aimed at a broad-based audience, including external content partners like Apple News and Smart News. Experience in a fast-paced environment and working collaboratively as part of a team is essential for this role, as well as being able to quickly switch gears and function as traditional news writer/editor in breaking news situations.
RESPONSIBILITIES
- Manage/curate the AccuWeather front pages, which consists of vertical landing pages for: News and Features, Astronomy, Business, Health, Recreation, Sports, and Travel, along with the news section of the AccuWeather app
- Ensure that each of the above pages is regularly being refreshed with new and/or relevant content that is presented in the most engaging way possible to readers
- Manage off-property AccuWeather front pages on places like Apple News and Smart News, and liaise with editorial contacts at those places to grow the relationship with them and maximize referral traffic back from them
- Ensure that all stories and videos look as best they can in all of the places in which they will appear both on and off property
- Manage the long-term improvement and growth of AccuWeather’s evergreen content archive
- Improve and surface evergreen stories on AccuWeather front pages when necessary and relevant
- Pitch, write and produce feature and evergreen story ideas
- Write and rewrite headlines and other promotional copy that will help drive engagement with the stories on all of the above platforms and social media
- Search for, obtain and edit imagery for stories as needed to enhance the promotional power of the stories and the experience of the stories once readers engage with them
- Use analytics to guide and inform decision-making and to foster traffic growth to AccuWeather front pages and AccuWeather stories and videos
- Provide periodic analytics reports to illustrate performance and traffic growth
- Pivot to gathering/writing news content in breaking news situations
- Other duties as assigned
QUALIFICATIONS
- Bachelors Degree in Journalism, Communications or a related degree
- 3-5 years of editorial experience with some portion of that being homepage editing experience
- Knowledge of SEO best practices
- Have sufficient experience with social media to be able to post on Twitter and Facebook in clutch situations
- Able to flourish working in a highly collaborative environment
- Have a positive attitude and embrace working as part of a team
- Possess at least a general interest in weather
- Must be available to work evenings, early mornings, weekends and holidays as needed
AccuWeather is proud to be an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity to all applicants and existing employees and we evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, creed, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy and gender identity/expression), sexual orientation, age, ancestry, physical or mental disability, marital status, political affiliation, religion, citizenship status, genetic information, veteran status, or any other basis protected under applicable federal, state, or local law. View the EEO is the Law poster here and its supplement here. The pay transparency policy is available here.
AccuWeather is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation because of a disability for any part of the employment process, please send an e-mail to human.resources@accuweather.com and let us know the nature of your request and your contact information.