Bilingual Editor

The Palestine Reporting Lab is seeking an experienced bilingual (Arabic and English) editor to help shape ambitious investigative, research-based, enterprise and narrative journalism about Palestine and Palestinian communities. This is a one year contract position with the possibility of extension. The editor will report to the Palestine Reporting Lab’s editorial director. The editor can be based anywhere but must have a willingness to hold meetings during US and Palestine working hours.

Key responsibilities:

• Help reporters and fellow editors fashion and sharpen story ideas, hypotheses, and lines of inquiry;
• Help build ambitious and realistic reporting plans and research methodologies;
  Identify gaps and opportunities for collaborations with co-reporters, researchers, and other journalism or media organizations;
• Help reporters think through sourcing, verification, and interview plans;
• Shape and deepen narrative approaches;
• Provide sustained editorial support, draft-by-draft, including structural edits and careful and artful line-edits, and guide a story from inception to the fact-checking and translation processes, all the way through publication, with rigor, care, and ambition.
• Help coordinate and design Arabic language social media posts, and help to administer operations for Arabic-only reporters and partners, including facilitating contracts and in-meeting interpretation.

Eligibility

• At least five years of journalism experience (and/or experience in a related field like human rights research, visual investigations, policy analysis, academia) with editing experience strongly preferred.
• A strong track record of leading investigative, in-depth, enterprise, narrative, and/or long-form journalism as an editor, reporter, or both.
• Fluency in spoken English and Arabic. The ability to write and edit in Arabic for accuracy, nuance, tone, rhythm, and clarity is a must. Ideally, the candidate will also be fluent in written English.
• Excellent project management and organizational skills, and the ability to keep complex stories organized, often over many months.
• Familiarity and expertise in at least some core journalistic research methods–which may include document and data-based reporting, OSINT reporting, visual investigations techniques, source development, verification and fact-checking, following the money, and other investigative methods.
• Experience and capacity to manage teams of reporters as well as partnerships with other journalism organizations.
• Openness to supporting reporters and reporting projects by taking on co-reporting tasks, making calls, chasing down information, and even conducting ground reporting, as needed to support a project.
• A strong narrative sensibility and the ability to help writers build stories that uncover something new, compel audiences to follow along, and hopefully to have an impact.
• A commitment to journalistic standards, including judgment around fairness.
• A collaborative approach to support reporters and other editors on the team, and to work constructively with editors at partner outlets.
• The ability to remain calm and empathetic while juggling multiple ambitious and often fast-paced projects.
• Comfort working across multiple time zones and with diverse colleagues and partners across the world.
• Experience in making or facilitating narrative and storytelling work in multiple mediums and/or in nontraditional formats is a plus.
• Experience covering or working on or in Palestine, and knowledge of Palestinian politics and society is highly valued.

How to apply

To apply please send the following to stories@palestinereportinglab.org with the subject line “Editor”:

• A resume or CV
• A cover letter, no longer than one page, explaining why your experience and interests fit the role, how you would approach ambitious stories, and some of your ideas about reporting and journalism about Palestine and Palestinian communities.
• Three to five examples of work, in English and/or in Arabic, that you have edited or reported, with a brief note (no more than one paragraph each) describing your role on each.
• Three professional references

For more information, please visit this page.