Description

KUNC is seeking an experienced and collaborative News Director to guide a highly respected public media newsroom through an exciting period of focus, innovation, and audience growth.

This is a senior leadership role that goes beyond strong journalism instincts or daily production expertise. The ideal candidate will bring a clear editorial vision, a people-centered approach to management, and the ability to build effective systems that support excellent journalism. At KUNC, this leader will actively engage with audience insights, help navigate change with confidence, and partner closely with the President & CEO and colleagues across departments.

The News Director will play a key role in setting priorities, communicating clearly, and creating a supportive and accountable environment where staff can thrive. This person will help strengthen KUNC’s journalism across platforms while expanding how audiences connect with our work.

Successful candidates will bring experience leading meaningful, forward-looking change in a newsroom or content organization. They are comfortable leading in all directions such as supporting staff, collaborating across teams, and managing up, and are equally skilled at empowering their team while setting clear, consistent expectations.

Key responsibilities

Editorial leadership and standards

·    Lead KUNC’s newsroom with excellent news judgment, strong ethical standards, and a clear commitment to trusted, independent public service journalism.

·    Set editorial priorities for local and regional coverage, using KUNC’s strategic plan, audience needs, community value, opportunities for growth, membership base and ratings/data.

·    Ensure KUNC’s journalism reflects the communities it serves with accuracy, fairness, relevance, inclusion, and public impact.

·    Maintain and enforce high standards for reporting, writing, editing, audio production, digital publishing, sourcing, ethics, and editorial independence.

·    Make clear editorial choices about what KUNC should cover, what it should stop doing, and where the newsroom can provide the most value.

·    Analyze and value strategic partnerships.

Daily news strategy and editorial focus

·    Lead KUNC’s daily news operation with strong editorial judgment, accuracy, fairness, and urgency when the story requires it.

·    Set clear expectations for when a story belongs in a newscast, when it needs a fuller feature or enterprise approach, when it should lead digitally, and when it should be distributed across multiple platforms.

·    Build planning systems that create more room for original topic-focused reporting, distinctive storytelling, and journalism that audiences cannot get from headlines, alerts, search, or social feeds.

·    Help staff understand the difference between being timely and being useful. KUNC’s journalism should explain, connect, verify, and deepen public understanding.

Feature, enterprise, and explanatory journalism

·    Make enterprise reporting, feature storytelling, explanatory journalism, and sound-rich local coverage central to KUNC’s editorial identity.

·    Coach reporters toward stories that reveal how decisions, systems, policies, culture, economy, environment, and community change affect people in Northern Colorado.

·    Develop editorial routines that support strong story generation, sharp focus, deeper sourcing, clear digital presentation, and intentional distribution.

·    Ensure KUNC produces journalism that gives audiences something they cannot easily get elsewhere: humanity, accountability, local knowledge, trusted explanation, and a clear sense of why the story matters.

Budget and department management

·    Develop, manage and monitor the newsroom department budget.

·    Make thoughtful budget-informed decisions about freelance support, travel, training, equipment, special projects, partnerships, and editorial priorities.

·    Track overall expenses, project expenses, plan for department needs, and communicate budget opportunities or concerns to the President & CEO.

Change management and workflow leadership

·    Lead meaningful and strategic newsroom change with clarity, empathy, accountability, and follow-through.

·    Build and manage newsroom workflows for story planning, assignment, editing, publishing, communication, breaking news response, project management, and cross-platform distribution.

·    Help staff adopt new tools, expectations, routines, formats, and performance standards.

·    Experience with using AI ethically in reporting and analysis.

·    Create a newsroom culture that values experimentation, learning, accountability, collaboration, and steady improvement.

Audience strategy and platform leadership

·    Treat broadcast, web, newsletters, podcasts, social media, streaming, and community events as connected parts of one journalism strategy working collaboratively with the Director of Product.

·    Actively use audience data, KPIs, platform performance, and community feedback to regularly guide story planning, publishing decisions, distribution strategy, and workflow improvements.

·    Work in partnership with the Director of Product in developing stronger habits around digital fluency, platform-specific storytelling, headline writing, visuals, promotion, follow-up, and audience engagement.

People management and HR responsibilities

·    Supervise, coach, and develop newsroom staff and other content workers as assigned.

·    Set clear expectations, provide regular feedback, conduct performance conversations, support professional development, and address performance concerns in a timely and appropriate manner.

·    Deliver on measurable department goals, editorial expectations, reporter output goals, publishing targets, productivity benchmarks, and performance indicators.

·    Address conflict professionally and constructively, including interpersonal tensions, workflow problems, performance issues, communication breakdowns, and resistance to change.

Executive communication and leadership judgment

·    Serve as a trusted senior leadership partner with the President & CEO.

·    Manage with clarity, professionalism, and consistency.

·    Operate independently while knowing when executive leadership needs to be involved.

·    Communicate early about sensitive coverage, staff concerns, budget issues, legal or HR risks, public reputation, donor or funder implications, major partnerships, and strategic shifts.

Required qualifications

·    At least four years of journalism or content leadership experience, including direct responsibility for editorial decision-making.

·    At least three years of direct people-management experience, including supervision, coaching, performance feedback, hiring, onboarding, documentation, and accountability.

·    At least one year of developing and/or being directly responsible for a budget.

·    Experience setting and using KPIs for newsroom performance, audience growth, publishing goals, or product development.

·    Experience managing staff through organizational transition and new ways of working/accountability.

·    Strong editorial judgment and a deep commitment to accuracy, fairness, ethics, independence, and public service journalism.

·    Experience editing and coaching features, enterprise, explanatory, audio, and digital journalism.

·    Strong experience with feature reporting, enterprise journalism, explanatory journalism, and audio storytelling.

·    Demonstrated commitment to grow or strengthen audience beyond broadcast, including social media, newsletters, podcasts, web, video, search, live events, or other digital/community platforms.

·    Demonstrated experience using audience data, KPIs, analytics, or performance information to make editorial and operational decisions.

·    Experience setting, managing, and evaluating reporter output expectations in ways that balance quality, audience value, staff capacity, and organizational priorities.

·    Ability to manage appropriately, lead across departments, and supervise staff with clarity and accountability.

·    Must be willing to reside in or commute to Greeley/Fort Collins four days a week.

Preferred qualifications

·    Experience leading local or regional journalism in a changing media environment.

·    Experience building audience growth strategies for news content across broadcast and non-broadcast platforms.

·    Experience refining newsroom productivity through planning systems, editing routines, beat management, story calendars, assignment discipline, and performance feedback.

·    Familiarity with Northern Colorado, Colorado, or Western issues and communities.

Compensation and benefits

Salary range: $98,000-$115,000, commensurate with experience.

Benefits include health insurance, dental, vision, paid time off, holidays, professional development, and hybrid work options.

Equal opportunity statement

KUNC / Community Radio for Northern Colorado is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to building a team that reflects the communities we serve and to creating a workplace grounded in respect, inclusion, accountability, and public service. We encourage candidates from all backgrounds and experiences to apply.

How to apply

Send cover letter, resume and list of references to [email protected].