About the Role

Title: Associate Director, Audience (Politics)

Location: Washington, DC Metro Area

Job Description:

Quick take: Axios is hiring an experienced newsroom audience specialist to grow and engage readership for our political and world news coverage.

Why it matters: This person will be responsible for broadening and deepening the audience experience across platforms, including newsletters, the web and social. 

  •  You will understand the differences in how users engage with our web vs. newsletter content and will take on a leading role in shaping our coverage to meet those specific needs.
  • You will have instincts on what will travel on distributed platforms, you recognize how Axios political coverage distinguishes itself from competitors and have a clear sense of what makes it a must-read with our audience.

Responsibilities:

  • Take ownership for the web performance of political and world news stories, building processes to ensure that coverage with potential to win site audience is thoughtfully planned.
  • Play a leadership role within the audience team and advance team goals across the newsroom.
  • Point person for identifying politics stories that are well-suited to be adapted and shared through other Axios distribution points — including Local and social video.
  • Develop coverage plans for upcoming, anticipatable news moments — including elections, legislation and major court decisions — to meet expected audience demand. Win the buy-in of the Politics editor and newsdesk to execute an optimal plan.
  • Interpret, contextualize and communicate actionable performance data to politics editors.
  • Advise on how best to translate coverage in newsletters to the web — which stories should be prioritized, which should be published outside of the newsletter schedule and which can be left to a newsletter-only audience.
  • Generate ideas for reader-service stories. These pieces will be targeted to a broader audience and often will be more explanatory than what readers find in Axios newsletters. Be open and able to write these stories.
  • Develop and execute tactics to grow the public profiles of our most conversation-driving politics reporters.
  • Develop and execute experiments to cultivate niche audiences in targeted online communities that align with Axios subject matter experts.

Skills: 

  • Enthusiastic about building expertise in political media and curious about learning the competitive landscape, identifying the top reporters in the ecosystem and understanding the rhythms that dictate political news cycles.
  • Proactive in staying on top of all incoming politics coverage in order to plan and optimize distribution opportunities
  • Has a sophisticated understanding of performance metrics in order to surface meaningful, actionable insights from the data 
  • Adaptable and diplomatic in pursuing goals while managing relationships with internal stakeholders on the Politics, Essentials, Newsdesk, Visuals and Communications teams.
  • Just as effective working collaboratively in a group as you are handling the duties of the job independently and self-sufficiently. 
  • Possesses strong writing and editing skills in order to occasionally byline stories that meet audience and vertical goals.

APPLY HERE