Producer​/Planner; CCJ

Overview

Within the local division of Gannett's USA TODAY NETWORK, the Center for Community Journalism (CCJ) supports small and midsized newsrooms with leadership, editing and planning. Its mission is to provide timely, factual and relevant information as a public service in local communities. The CCJ focuses on reporting on high-interest local topics, including food, drink and culture; growth and development; government accountability;

people-centered stories; and high school and Division I college sports. CCJ newsrooms value quality over quantity, recognizing that premium content for subscribers sustains local journalism.

The Producer/Planner team in the CCJ plays a crucial role in ensuring high-impact local journalism reaches its maximum audience. Producers/Planners are strategic partners and the architects of publication plans to maximize audience and subscription growth. They ensure the right content is published and delivered to the right audience on the right platforms at the right time, in both advance planning and execution.

Using analytics to create and adjust plans and to advise on reporting opportunities is key.

This is a multi-newsroom, multi-platform role that collaborates with other journalists to brainstorm and execute digital storytelling, such as photos, videos, graphics, sidebars and social cards; native platform management with homepage/app curation, newsletters and push alerts; search optimization; and social media management.

The Producer/Planner:

• Is a strategic partner for local editors and reporters within the newsrooms they are assigned. Each Producer/Planner is assigned to multiple newsrooms, based on site size and geographic location.
• Will have or hone strong news judgment toward promoting stories on native platforms, search, social and in print. Editors trust their Producer/Planner partner to make independent decisions about how and where content is presented.
• Is also an advocate for sharing their newsrooms' work with other sites in the USA TODAY Network — within the CCJ, with the metros and mid-metros and with USA TODAY. The Producer/Planner is responsible for picking up supplemental coverage of interest to their community newsrooms from other sites to enhance reader experience.
• Works daily with other Producer/Planners to coordinate and execute story promotion via home fronts, push alerts, newsletters, social media and print.

The Producer/Planner is a remote job within the CCJ that can be located in all states except Alaska and Hawaii. It may require occasional early morning or late-night hours and weekend shifts to manage platforms and respond to breaking news.

• Partnering with editors on premium schedule and staying updated on best practices regarding subscriber-exclusive content.
• Maintaining digital and print content calendars via Presto Suite and determining embargo times to reach target audience.
• Keep a birds-eye view of content across the newsroom and Network.
• Managing native and off-site platforms:
  Scheduling and setting up Home front stories, push alerts and social media posts. Time of day for target audience is top of mind.
• Optimizing premium and high-potential content for search, recirculation and deeper audience engagement time.
• Enhancing content with video, galleries, SEO metadata, hyperlinks and images.
• Writing effective digital headlines, promo briefs and breaking news alerts that help attract audiences.
• Spotting and correcting issues related to grammar, spelling, punctuation and style.
• Creating social cards via Canva for high-potential stories and scheduling them on social media platforms.
• Using Parse.ly and Google Analytics to make data-driven decisions and advise on opportunities targeting the audience funnel.
• Curating the Daily Briefing newsletter.
• Attending newsroom/team meetings and possibly running meetings.
• Helping newsrooms swarm breaking news and trending by suggesting (and sometimes writing) stories targeting search and social. This will include search optimization and formatting live blogs. It may include creating content and gathering user-generated content.
• Sharing content to other planners/sites and searching for content to promote on yours, including USA TODAY and sites in the regional structure.
• Enforcing workflow standards, including planning communication and deadlines.
• Maintaining a print schedule at least 5 days in advance.

Posting daily print lineups for our Design Center partners and following operational standards for setting our design partners up for success. The Producer/Planner is the primary contact between design and the newsroom.

• Bachelor s or master s degree in communications, journalism, marketing, or related field or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• 3+ years  experience in a news or social media role.
• Proficiency in digital platforms, such as websites and apps, social media and search.
• Experience with content analytics tools, such as Google Analytics or Parse.ly is a plus.
• Experience in a deadline-driven…