Commissioning Editor, Travel

This role will commission, edit and write travel editorial for both titles across digital and print. They will create distinctive Travel content that inspires and intrigues our readers.

The candidate must have experience commissioning for a national newspaper or magazine. You will have first-class editing skills, with excellent contacts in travel.

Apply with a covering letter and your CV by May 8.

Responsibilities

• Successfully manage productive relationships with the Head of Travel, Deputy Travel Editor, Associate Editor (Live), the Senior Commissioning Editor and the wider travel team.

• Work with editors, writers and reporters to conceive, commission and write exclusive agenda-setting travel content for a digital and print audience

• Help the Senior Commissioning Editor and Associate Editor (live) create weekly print editions that maximise our digital first and smart commissioning strategy

• Liaise with writers, PRs/agents, Tourism contacts and the picture desk to organise logistics, often working with people in different time zones

• Demonstrate an understanding of what works best for digital, offering content that is truly distinctive

• Use the latest digital data to inform commissioning

• Collaborate with production colleagues in design, pictures and sub-editing on digital elements that enhance the features you write and edit

• Prioritise visual storytelling. Commission exclusive video, polls, interactive graphics and picture galleries to engage our digital audience and plan how these stories are shared and promoted online

• Forward-plan, working with journalists on long-range projects

• Use SEO, Inca, Parsley and Google Trends to help guide commissioning

• Use social networking and other digital platforms for content generation and to promote The Times and The Sunday Times Travel content

• Attend daily and weekly departmental meetings

• Represent TNL travel at press and PR events

Skills and experience

• Experience working as a writer or editor on a national newspaper or magazine

• Experience in and a demonstrable passion for travel journalism with good contacts in the travel industry

• Experience publishing on multi-platform digital products

• An ability to work under pressure, to tight deadlines and with rigorous accuracy

• An understanding of how audience data supports commissioning and how to promote a story on social media and through search engines

• Persuasive presentation skills, well-developed inter-personal skills, with the ability to problem-solve and negotiate positive outcomes

• Able to communicate succinctly and effectively

• Experience working collaboratively with multidisciplinary teams

• A strong understanding of editorial compliance and regulatory issues

We are News UK: One of the leading media businesses in the UK and Ireland, our newsbrands include The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun, The Sun on Sunday and The TLS. Our national broadcast brands include talkSPORT, Times Radio, talkRADIO and Virgin Radio, and we have market-leading local radio stations across Ireland. In April 2022, we launched TalkTV, a major new TV channel available to everyone across the UK, delivering a schedule of news, current affairs and entertainment and sport. Our world-famous brands provide news, analysis, opinion and entertainment to almost 40 million people each month. Spanning digital and print, audio and video, events and experiences, our brands are home to a plurality of opinion, representing the diverse communities we serve. News UK is wholly owned by News Corp.

Life at News: At News UK we believe our people are our heartbeat - they are the driving force behind our brands and we want the ways we work to enable people to thrive. Some of us work flexibly, in many different ways. We encourage you to talk to us about the flexibility you would like. We can’t promise to offer exactly what you want, but do provide multiple flexible working options. Many of us work in a hybrid way between one of the News UK & Ireland offices and remotely.

We champion diversity and inclusion, we strive to maximise and encourage every individual’s potential and ensure everyone feels valued. We support this through our Diversity Board, D&I strategy & training, creating more diverse content and our intern and apprenticeship programmes. We also have 9 employee-led networks; Cultural Diversity, News is Out, GenZ, Sustainability Champions, News for Parents, Women in Tech, News UK Christian Fellowship, Women’s Steering Group and Disability network.

We take pride in looking after our amazing talent at News UK supporting the Health and Wellbeing of our staff. We offer private medical insurance covering pre-existing conditions, discounted gym memberships, ClassPass at Home, weekly virtual HIIT, yoga and run club classes, and a ‘Bikes for Work’ scheme, as well as offering opportunities for physio/massage, counselling and legal support.

In addition we also offer:

• A generous

  Pension

  scheme with employer contributions of up to 5%

  
  

• 30 days holiday and up to 4 volunteering days per year;

  
  
• Maternity leave up to 18 weeks full basic salary & paternity leave up to 2 weeks;
  
  

• Wide range of training available, plus full LinkedIn Learning access
  
  

We want to ensure that everyone we meet has the opportunity to perform to their best when interviewing, so feel free to let us know, at any stage, whether you require any reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, and we will do our best to accommodate.

News UK is an official partner of the Journalism Diversity Fund, founder of the Journalism and Disability Forum, and proud member of the Valuable 500. At News UK, we will continue to promote an inclusive and diverse workplace, to help people with visible and non visible disabilities create careers in media and aim to make our content accessible to all.