Title: Managing Editor (Pesa Check)
Location: Nairobi, Kenya
Reports to: Code for Kenya Lead
Do you want to help fight fake news by keeping politicians honest and the media accurate?
East Africa’s first indigenous fact-checking initiative, PesaCheck, is looking for a hard-nosed managing editor to oversee a network of fact-checkers in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
PesaCheck fights fake news and misleading information by rigorously fact-checking politicians’ and journalists’ comments on issues of public importance. PesaCheck is incubated by Code for Kenya as an innovateAFRICA winner, with support from the International Budget Partnership (in Kenya) and Twaweza (in Tanzania), in partnership with Meedan, as part of wider global efforts to give citizens better information for better decisionmaking.
You can learn more about PesaCheck’s approach here.
Responsibilities
This is a one-year full-time fixed-term contract. The managing editor will report to PesaCheck’s editor, and will be responsible for the following deliverables:
- Managing the central PesaCheck newsdesk and contributor network of researchers, analysts and data journalists to ensure that weekly fact-checking reports adhere to standards and meet the publication schedules of media partners.
- Ensuring the fact-checked articles are widely syndicated into mainstream Kenyan media, as well as onto appropriate online media to achieve maximum audience reach.
- Managing PesaCheck’s public platforms as well as its social media strategy to maximise public engagement with PesaCheck content.
- Coordinating training and support for PesaCheck partner newsrooms who run their own internal fact-checking desks.
Qualifications
The successful candidate will be someone who can demonstrate a track-record for:
- Being a ‘digital native’, who knows their way around the online world.
- Strong mainstream news desk management skills, with a proven ability for commissioning and managing teams of multidisciplinary contributors who consistently deliver high-quality content on tight deadlines.
- Critical-thinking and strong research / investigative skills, to help ensure that contributor submissions are properly verified and substantiated before being published.
- Excellent writing and editing skills, with a strong command of English (UK) grammar, and the ability to rewrite often ‘dense’ copy into ‘everyman’ language under tight deadlines.
- The ability to ‘think visually’ to help PesaCheck designers create infographics that explain complex issues using simple visualisations.
- Mentorship skills to nurture a diverse team of contributors to work virtually across three countries while meeting PesaCheck quality metrics.
- Adeptness with social-media and the use of web analytics tools, such as Chartbeat or Google Analytics etc, would be a strong advantage.
- An interest in working on social justice initiatives that empower citizens by equipping them with actionable information.
Experience
The successful candidate will:
- Have at least five years mainstream experience producing content— both writing and editing / managing.
- Be a self-starter with a demonstrated history of self-motivation and teamwork, with strong interpersonal communication skills.
- Be a lateral thinking problem-solver who enjoys developing clear and pragmatic strategies for building teams, systems and new products.
- Have the ability to juggle multiple high-priority, disparate tasks while meeting deadlines and quality metrics.
- Have tactical social media insights and the digital skills to ensure maximum engagement around optimised content on different social media platforms.
- Have your own laptop.
The successful candidate will receive a competitive monthly stipend, with strong career growth prospects, and the chance to travel both regionally and internationally. The successful candidate will work under supervision of PesaCheck’s editor, based at Code for Kenya’s CivicLab at the Nairobi Garage, Piedmont Plaza, on Ngong Road, Nairobi.
The deadline for applications is May 12, 2017.
How to apply:
Please apply by sending an email to the recruitment team at join@pesacheck.org with your cover letter and CV. Please include the following in your subject line: PesaCheck Managing Editor. If you do not hear from us within two weeks after the application deadline, please consider your application unsuccessful.
About Code for Kenya
Code for Kenya is a member of the Code for Africa (CfAfrica) federation, the continent’s largest independent data journalism and civic technology initiative. CfAfrica runs the $1 million per year innovateAFRICA.fund, the $500,000/year impactAFRICA.fund and the $500,000/year Sandbox Fund which award seed grants to civic pioneers for experiments with everything from camera drones and environmental sensors, to encryption for whistleblowers and data-driven semantic analysis tools for investigative watchdogs.
Code for Kenya seeks to leverage these resources and technology tools to build digital democracies that give citizens timely and unfettered access to actionable information that empowers them to make informed decisions and strengthens civic engagement. A major focus of this work is to strengthen watchdog journalism by providing digital tools, data, and editorial support.Managing Editor