The Palestine Reporting Lab is seeking an experienced bilingual (Arabic and English) editor to help shape ambitious investigative, research-based, enterprise and narrative journalism about Palestine and Palestinian communities.
The Palestine Reporting Lab supports investigative and in-depth stories that uncover hidden harm, focus on accountability, and serve communities affected by abuses of power. We provide emerging and veteran journalists with rigorous editorial guidance and mentorship, meaningful financial support, and opportunities for collaborative reporting, research, and storytelling.
The Palestine Reporting Lab is not an outlet. Instead, we are a journalism incubator. We develop reporting projects, support reporters and reporting teams to carry them out, and produce and publish our projects in partnership with leading news organizations in English and in Arabic.
The Palestine Reporting Lab is a project of Just Vision, an independent, not-for-profit media organization based in the United States, and is guided by the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics. We are committed to editorial independence, truth, integrity, and fairness.
We are looking for a skilled bilingual editor to join our small but growing editorial team. The editor will be the Lab’s coordinator for Arabic language journalism, and will be involved in stories in both English and Arabic. The editor will work closely with other editors to support reporters and reporting teams at every step in the reporting process from conception through publication. Our stories can be long magazine narratives, short investigative news features, audio or video stories, experimental storytelling products, and anything else we can imagine and our reporters or partners can carry out.
We are ultimately looking for an exceptional editor: someone with the judgment, curiosity, discipline, and bilingual skill to help produce great journalism. The editor should be able to work confidently in both English and Arabic, and support reporters in either language. They will be the primary editor of Arabic language work (including work originally in Arabic and work that is translated into Arabic) and a bridge between English-only editors, reporters and partners, and Arabic-only editors, reporters, and partners.
The editor will:
- Help reporters and fellow editors fashion and sharpen story ideas, hypotheses, and lines of inquiry;
- Help build ambitious and realistic reporting plans and research methodologies;
- Identify gaps and opportunities for collaborations with co-reporters, researchers, and other journalism or media organizations;
- Help reporters think through sourcing, verification, and interview plans;
- Shape and deepen narrative approaches;
- Provide sustained editorial support, draft-by-draft, including structural edits and careful and artful line-edits, and guide a story from inception to the fact-checking and translation processes, all the way through publication, with rigor, care, and ambition.
- Help coordinate and design Arabic language social media posts, and help to administer operations for Arabic-only reporters and partners, including facilitating contracts and in-meeting interpretation.
Qualifications:
The following offers a broad and aspirational view of a candidate profile; we encourage applications from candidates with a wide range of experiences and backgrounds. We recognize that no single candidate will possess every qualification. Who you are and the skills you have will shape the work we do. If you are interested in the role and hold many of the qualifications, we encourage you to apply.
- At least five years of journalism experience (and/or experience in a related field like human rights research, visual investigations, policy analysis, academia) with editing experience strongly preferred.
- A strong track record of leading investigative, in-depth, enterprise, narrative, and/or long-form journalism as an editor, reporter, or both.
- Fluency in spoken English and Arabic. The ability to write and edit in Arabic for accuracy, nuance, tone, rhythm, and clarity is a must. Ideally, the candidate will also be fluent in written English.
- Excellent project management and organizational skills, and the ability to keep complex stories organized, often over many months.
- Familiarity and expertise in at least some core journalistic research methods–which may include document and data-based reporting, OSINT reporting, visual investigations techniques, source development, verification and fact-checking, following the money, and other investigative methods.
- Experience and capacity to manage teams of reporters as well as partnerships with other journalism organizations.
- Openness to supporting reporters and reporting projects by taking on co-reporting tasks, making calls, chasing down information, and even conducting ground reporting, as needed to support a project.
- A strong narrative sensibility and the ability to help writers build stories that uncover something new, compel audiences to follow along, and hopefully to have an impact.
- A commitment to journalistic standards, including judgment around fairness.
- A collaborative approach to support reporters and other editors on the team, and to work constructively with editors at partner outlets.
- The ability to remain calm and empathetic while juggling multiple ambitious and often fast-paced projects.
- Comfort working across multiple time zones and with diverse colleagues and partners across the world.
- Experience in making or facilitating narrative and storytelling work in multiple mediums and/or in nontraditional formats is a plus.
- Experience covering or working on or in Palestine, and knowledge of Palestinian politics and society is highly valued.
This is a one year contract position with the possibility of extension. The editor will report to the Palestine Reporting Lab’s editorial director. The editor can be based anywhere but must have a willingness to hold meetings during US and Palestine working hours. Compensation is competitive and will depend on experience and geographic location.
Applications will be considered on a rolling basis​.​
To apply please send the following to stories@palestinereportinglab.org with the subject line “Editor”:
- A resume or CV
- A cover letter, no longer than one page, explaining why your experience and interests fit the role, how you would approach ambitious stories, and some of your ideas about reporting and journalism about Palestine and Palestinian communities.
- Three to five examples of work, in English and/or in Arabic, that you have edited or reported, with a brief note (no more than one paragraph each) describing your role on each.
- Three professional references
No phone calls, text messages, or social media inquiries please. We may not be able to respond individually to each application. Incomplete applications will not be reviewed.