Public Safety Editor

The Dallas Morning News is looking for an experienced editor to lead our enterprise-focused public safety team holding courts and law enforcement accountable in the country’s ninth-largest city anchoring the fourth-largest metro area.

Our goal is to be the No. 1 regional news organization in the U.S. Making that happen depends on developing reporters that can regularly produce groundbreaking, community-changing journalism that helps Dallas and the D-FW Metroplex understand and overcome its challenges, holds our community leaders accountable and highlights the good work taking place around us.

We value stories with impact that are driven by people-focused writing supported by facts, data and information our readers won’t find anywhere else. Our public safety team is small, but packs a punch. In the past year, it has written about:

• How the Dallas Police Department lost thousands of pieces of video evidence
• The lack of accountability provided by Dallas’ citizen police oversight board
• A judge who scheduled more than 100 trials in a single day and sent prosecutors scrambling to prepare for all of them
• The increase in gun and drug trafficking across the Texas-Mexico border
• A man who died in police custody, but his family was never told officials ruled their son’s death a homicide

The public safety editor will work with a team of reporters emphasizing the development of their enterprise reporting and writing skills. The goal is to help them exercise and develop solid news judgment and strong sourcing that leads to impactful journalism. With the help of this editor, the public safety team’s work should be insightful and focus on stories and projects with the potential to transform Dallas.

The ideal editor will help develop a collaborative, inclusive culture in our newsroom. They’ll lead from a position of honesty, integrity and trust that inspires their team and helps to strengthen our newsroom’s resolve as one team working toward a shared objective. By being transparent and accountable, they will make sure the public safety team’s course is clearly charted. When the work is difficult, they’ll lead with positivity, exhibiting compassion and empathy for the reporting team and the subjects they write about.

Job Requirements

Here’s our list of preferred skills and experience: (Please note this is not a checklist of requirements, but should be considered as a pool of preferred qualifications. If you can already do some of these things, great. If you're excited about figuring out how to do all of them, great! We'd love to hear from you either way.)

• At least five years in a role where you’ve managed a team of journalists
• A team-oriented approach to leadership
• Strong organizational skills and the ability to help reporters prioritize their work and regularly produce meaningful, exclusive journalism
• Rock-solid news judgment (a knowledge of D-FW is a plus)
• Storytelling skills
• The ability to coach writers and reporters through difficult stories
• A knowledge of digital media and how to expand audience and enhance interest in our content.

A diverse newsroom best serves our community that fosters an inclusive work environment for people from all backgrounds, regardless of race, gender, age, or sexual orientation.

The Dallas Morning News has a distinguished history of journalistic excellence, having won nine Pulitzer Prizes. For more than 137 years, The News has been committed to high standards as it covers one of the most important and vibrant markets in the country. North Texas often leads the country in population growth and is frequently on the shortlist for some of the largest world headquarters relocations.

Benefit Offerings:

Internal Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee

Internal Culture Committee

Leadership Development Programs

Annual Unconscious Bias Training

Flexible Work Schedules

12 weeks of Parental Leave

Monthly Webinars addressing Health & Wealth for all employees

Medical/Dental and Vision insurance

MDLive Telemedicine 24/7/365 access to board-certified doctors via computer or phone

Onsite Fitness Center

Retirement benefits, including employer contributions

Employee Assistance Program

18 Paid Time Off Days

9 Paid Holidays

8 Hours Community Service Time Off

Pet Insurance