Senior Editor, Business

📋 Description

• • Lead and shape high-impact investigative business stories that hold powerful institutions accountable and drive meaningful policy change across the United States. You will be the editorial engine behind investigations that expose corporate malfeasance, financial fraud, and systemic inequities—stories that frequently spark congressional hearings, regulatory crackdowns, and sweeping reforms.
• • Serve as the primary editorial steward for ProPublica’s business desk, guiding reporters through labyrinthine financial documents, SEC filings, bankruptcy dockets, and whistle-blower testimony to uncover hidden risks and abuses. Your deep fluency in balance sheets, proxy statements, and derivatives will help transform dense data into revelatory narratives that resonate with policymakers and everyday readers alike.
• • Commission, assign, and edit a dynamic mix of long-form investigations, rapid-response accountability pieces, and recurring franchises that illuminate how corporate power affects workers, consumers, and communities. From private-equity roll-ups that hollow out local hospitals to supply-chain labor abuses hidden inside Fortune 500 brands, you will set the agenda for coverage that matters.
• • Collaborate with cross-functional teams—data journalists, visual reporters, interactive developers, lawyers, and audience strategists—to craft stories that marry rigorous reporting with innovative presentation. You will shepherd projects from conception through publication, ensuring every graphic, sidebar, and line of code deepens public understanding.
• • Mentor a diverse cohort of mid-career and early-career reporters, providing intensive line edits, story coaching, and tailored career development plans. Your feedback will sharpen investigative instincts, strengthen sourcing techniques, and cultivate the next generation of journalists who can navigate both boardrooms and factory floors with equal rigor.
• • Partner with ProPublica’s senior leadership to set the strategic direction of the business desk, identifying emerging beats such as cryptocurrency fraud, ESG greenwashing, algorithmic wage theft, and the hidden environmental costs of rapid delivery logistics. You will anticipate where power is consolidating next and position the newsroom to expose it first.
• • Oversee bulletproof fact-checking and legal review processes, working hand-in-hand with ProPublica’s in-house counsel to anticipate defamation risks, navigate source-protection issues, and ensure every story meets the organization’s exacting standards for accuracy, fairness, and transparency.
• • Represent ProPublica externally by speaking at industry conferences, participating in live journalism events, and cultivating relationships with whistleblowers, academic experts, and regulators who can inform future investigations. Your thought leadership will reinforce ProPublica’s reputation as the gold standard for accountability reporting.
• • Leverage data-driven insights to measure real-world impact—tracking legislative responses, corporate policy reversals, enforcement actions, and reader engagement—to continually refine editorial priorities and demonstrate the tangible change your journalism delivers.
• • Champion inclusive storytelling, ensuring that sources and perspectives from historically marginalized communities are centered in coverage of corporate behavior and economic inequality. You will interrogate whose voices are missing and why, then commission reporting that fills those gaps.
• • Manage budgets, freelance contracts, and collaborative partnerships with local newsrooms, public-radio stations, and international outlets, amplifying ProPublica’s reach through co-publishing agreements and joint investigations that extend the shelf life and geographic footprint of every story.
• • Experiment with cutting-edge formats—interactive graphics, narrative audio, documentary video, and immersive scrollytelling—to make intricate business stories accessible, engaging, and unforgettable for a broad public audience that increasingly consumes news on mobile devices and social platforms.
• • Uphold ProPublica’s nonprofit mission by maintaining strict editorial independence, resisting influence from advertisers, donors, or political pressure, and ensuring every editorial decision serves the public interest above all else.