The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University seeks an experienced and innovative professional to teach and lead undergraduate and graduate students in producing social media content, newsletters and other multimedia content in the nation’s No. 1-ranked Cronkite News—the school’s student-staffed, faculty-led news outlet—and in related Cronkite courses.

This role combines editorial leadership, product strategy and measurement, mentorship and teaching, ensuring students develop professional-level skills in digital journalism and engagement while maintaining the highest standards of accuracy, fairness and thoroughness. Success in this role is measured by the success of students, and their ability to synthesize skills and knowledge from earlier courses inside a working newsroom environment.

The successful candidate will be a journalist of the highest caliber with strong audience engagement experience, a creative thinker who is comfortable in a highly energized news environment, and a student-first instructor inspired by the future multimedia news. The candidate demonstrates a commitment to accuracy, fairness and collaboration; possesses the skills to inspire, support and instruct a team of student news and sports journalists; and instinctively delivers clear direction and feedback.

As a member of the faculty, the professor will have teaching and service responsibilities with the Cronkite School. In this role, there are no research or creative activity responsibilities.

This is a full-time, benefits-eligible, 9-month appointment with a faculty rank based on qualifications and experience. It is a year-to-year appointment, not a tenure-track appointment.

Essential Responsibilities

● Leading, editing, teaching and mentoring a team of upper-level undergraduate and graduate journalism and sports students in a full-time, daily news environment (typical hours are approximately 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday)

● Teaching lower-, upper- and graduate-division courses in media skills

● Coaching students through the ideation, production and measurement of social media, newsletter, website and other digital products

● Managing daily coverage together with fellow Cronkite News faculty, and collaboratively planning, managing and producing innovative and professional digital news and sports content

● Editing plans, scripts, text, video, student work and related multimedia elements for publication across Cronkite News and Sports properties, as well as for distribution to more than 150 clients across the country

● Teaching students how to analyze audience data and synthesize and apply insights drawn from the data

● Guiding students in cultivating communities around Cronkite News and sports content produced by their fellow students, with an emphasis on meaningful audience interaction

● Fostering a culture of innovation by harnessing fresh ideas and experimenting with new tools, technologies and techniques that enhance news and sports storytelling, engagement and performance

● Collaborating with other newsroom faculty, students and staff

● Performing service both internally (e.g., committee assignments, student recruitment) and externally (e.g. professional workshops, contest judging)

● Performing other duties as assigned

About Cronkite News

Cronkite News is a multi-platform daily news operation that produces daily and enterprise news coverage of critical issues on Arizona PBS and digital, audio and social platforms. The newsroom serves more than 1.8 million households with its nightly broadcast and Arizona and national audiences with its digital content, regularly published by more than 100 media outlets. Cronkite News also serves as an immersive and innovative learning laboratory for students, who create content under the guidance of award-winning, experienced professionals. Cronkite News is anchored inside a state-of-the-art newsroom located on ASU’s Downtown Phoenix campus in the nation’s 11th-largest media market, with additional bureaus in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles.

About the Cronkite School

The Cronkite School is widely recognized as the nation’s premier mass communication school, ranked No. 1 by the Broadcast Education Association for three consecutive years. Rooted in the time-honored values that characterize its namesake—accuracy, responsibility, integrity—the school fosters excellence and ethics among students as they master the professional skills required to succeed in the digital media world of today and tomorrow.

Based on ASU’s Downtown Phoenix campus in the heart of the nation’s fifth-largest city, the School is known for its hands-on, “teaching hospital” approach to learning led by a faculty composed of Pulitzer Prize-winning professional journalists, strategic communications leaders and world-class media scholars. More than 2,500 undergraduate, master’s and doctoral students regularly lead the country in national competitions as they prepare for careers in journalism, PR, marketing, strategic media and related communication fields

.About Arizona State University

Arizona State University, ranked the No. 1 “Most Innovative School” in the nation by U.S. News & World Report for 10 years in succession, has forged the model for a New American University. Repeatedly ranked No. 1, ASU has topped more than 20 lists in the last three years: No. 1 in the U.S. for global impact (Times Higher Education) and No. 1 in the U.S. for sustainable practices (Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education). ASU is a comprehensive public research institution, measured not by whom it excludes, but by whom it includes and how they succeed; advancing research and discovery of public value; and assuming fundamental responsibility for the economic, social, cultural and overall health of the communities it serves. ASU operates on the principles that learning is a personal and original journey for each student; that they thrive on experience and that the process of discovery cannot be bound by traditional academic disciplines. Through innovation and a commitment to accessibility, ASU has drawn pioneering researchers to its faculty even as it expands opportunities for qualified students, attracting some of the highest-quality students from all 50 states and more than 130 nations.

Required Qualifications

Candidates must have a bachelor’s degree at the time of appointment, and at least 10 years professional journalism experience in a major-market or national media organization, or equivalent specialized experience.

Desired Qualifications

● Experience reporting, producing and editing content for local, regional or national audiences, ideally Arizona audiences

● Experience leading, managing and editing a team, particularly early-career journalists or communicators

● Mastery of AP Style

● Measurable success in engaging audiences around news and/or sports content

● Experience developing a news and/or sports beat

● Experience using native analytics tools and reporting content performance

● Experience leading organic social media, customer engagement, newsletter production and/or digital video for a newsroom, brand or other organization

● Ability to complement or create written, audio, video and/or photo storytelling

● Experience teaching journalism, social media or related topics at the university level

● Demonstrated proficiency in new and emerging multimedia storytelling tools and platforms

Applicants will be asked to create or use an existing Interfolio Dossier to submit the following:

1. A cover letter stating qualifications
2. Curriculum vitae or resume
3. Contact information (name, address, email, telephone number) for three professional references

Successful candidates will demonstrate throughout their materials how their teaching, research, and service will contribute to the fulfillment of the ASU Charter.

The applicant’s name should appear in each uploaded file name. Cover letters may be addressed to the Search Committee Chair, Brett Kurland. Questions about the position should be directed to the search committee chair at: brett.kurland@asu.edu .

Application deadline is February 14, 2025. Applications will continue to be accepted on a rolling basis for a reserve pool. Applications in the reserve pool may then be reviewed in the order in which they were received until the position is filled.