About the Queer Media Collaborative

Word Is Out: A Queer Media Collaborative is an initiative of the Local Media Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charitable trust affiliated with Local Media Association, supporting six publishers who are solely focused on the LGBTQ+ community. The first-of-its-kind collaborative will focus on business sustainability for these publishers and producing great journalism. The project is initially funded by the Google News Initiative Innovation Challenge.

Position details:

  • This is a contract position at a rate of $50/hour for 20 hours/week, with the goal to seek funding to convert to a full-time position in 2022. Duties will grow with increased funding.
  • The Editor / Project Manager will work closely with the LMA/LMF Director of Business Strategy and Partnerships, who is managing the collaborative.
  • Location: Anywhere. LMA/LMF is a virtual organization. You need only reliable internet access and a commercial airport nearby for occasional travel, once conditions allow.
  • Starts in January 2022.

Duties include:

  • Managing daily communications with all participating newsrooms.
  • Maintaining external communications such as a website, newsletters, social media accounts etc.
  • Managing external relationships, including those with project funders and LMA/LMF.
  • Creating and managing an editorial collaboration calendar.
  • Working with LMA/LMF on scheduling business transformation programming to support participating news organizations.
  • Building awareness about the collaborative with media organizations, journalists, university journalism programs, and community members.
  • Organizing and facilitating convenings of journalists and community members.
  • Monitoring the project budget.
  • Authoring project and funding proposals and required grant reports.
  • Assisting LMA/LMF executive team in seeking funding and resources that support the LGBTQ+ reporting ecosystem, and with sponsor, foundation, and donor relationships.
  • Staying current with local journalism collaborative efforts across the globe to help inform development of the collaborative.
  • Representing the collaborative publicly on conference panels, virtual sessions and in the media.
  • Maintaining the technology and communications tools used to run the collaborative, i.e. Airtable, Slack, Zoom, website etc.

Minimum requirements and competencies:

  • Bachelor’s degree.
  • Experience covering LGBTQ+ issues, or working at a publication that primarily covers an LGTBQ+ audience.
  • Strong time-management and project-management skills.
  • Strong analytical, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills.
  • Excellent interpersonal, verbal and written communication skills.
  • Understand how to build and maintain positive community relationships and manage effective communication.
  • Comfort in working as lead of a virtual organization with little daily outside supervision
  • Basic knowledge of financial statements and financial projections.
  • Ability to prepare business correspondence, proposal, summary, and reports using prescribed formats.
  • Ability to communicate distinctly and make presentations with poise and control
  • Passion for empowering citizens of all backgrounds to participate in sustainable living and community building.
  • Multimedia and social media skills; knowledge of digital content management systems.
  • Tech-savvy – ability to learn new technology and stay current with advances in digital journalism.

Please send a resume and cover letter describing your interest in the position; as well as contact information for three professional references. Kindly submit electronically to jobs@localmedia.org by Dec. 15; no mailed submissions will be accepted. LMA/LMF and Word Is Out seek and welcome applicants of diverse backgrounds.