Engagement Producer, Early Childhood Education

Southern California Public Radio - American Public Media
Pasadena , CA

Application Deadline: Saturday, Dec 01, 2018

Description

Position Summary:

Research shows that critical brain development occurs before a child enters kindergarten. Education during the 0–5 years is key to successful outcomes later in life. Yet the conversation around education often focuses more on K–12. SCPR has spent the last six years reporting on this issue from homes, classrooms, and nonprofit organizations to gain a better understanding of how our early childcare system is preparing children to succeed and thrive.

Expanding upon this valuable and ongoing work, SCPR now seeks to expand the audience and build deeper relationships with community members who could benefit from our service.

We will accomplish this by building an engaged journalism strategy dedicated to informing, connecting, and empowering a community of low- and middle-income L.A. County parents and caregivers of children ages 0–5 in specific neighborhoods or demographics, while continuing to inform and educate our existing broadcast audio and digital audiences on ECED topics. This will include in-person events, source development, and designing and executing nontraditional distribution models.

SCPR seeks a dedicated engagement producer-reporter who will facilitate the engaged journalism work and monitor whether we are meeting benchmarks set for the news service, as well as for our broadcast audio and digital stories, which will continue as before on topics of importance to our broader audiences. This position is in addition to the early childhood education and development reporter position.

We’re looking for someone who brings strong journalism fundamentals and a passion and curiosity for engaged journalism. S/he will look for creative approaches to engage the community in coverage and identify the information needs and habits of stakeholders. Working in SCPR’s cross-platform newsroom, s/he will also report, write and produce reports, post online stories, and use social media and engagement tools to report, engage sources and listeners/users, and develop engagement projects.

This is a two-year grant-funded full-time position.

Position Responsibility:
• Serve as liaison between KPCC’s newsroom, community organizations, and academic community.
• Work with director of community engagement, editor(s), and reporter(s) to produce content, including but not limited to digital and printed content and live events (convenings).
• Facilitate community engagement and partnerships.
• Use social media to build engagement.
• Use engagement tools like the Public Insight Network, Hearken and GroundSource.
• Effectively navigate and interpret social science research, Pew research, government data and other sources of relevant data.
• Responsible for high standards of journalistic integrity, accuracy and timeliness.
• Report on early childhood for parents, educators and the broader community of interest.
• Pitch, report and produce occasional news stories.
• Writes and edits copy as required.
• Keeps up-to-date on current events (local, national and international).
• Other duties as assigned.

Required Education and Experience:
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent work experience.
• Five or more years of journalism experience.

Required Skills, Knowledge and Abilities:

• Experience in social media and content production.
• Interest in social networking, content aggregation and new trends in digital media.
• Familiarity with data analysis.
• Strong news judgment.
• Strong writing skills.
• Ability to work collaboratively and effectively with colleagues in multiple departments/divisions.
• Strong interest in local and regional news and general depth of knowledge about issues and current events.
• Ability to work with changing deadlines and in a fast-paced environment.
• Ability to work simultaneously on short and long-term projects.
• Familiarity w/digital and mobile content management systems.
• Proven ability to contribute to a positive, diverse, creative, high performance culture.
• Good interpersonal and communication skills.

Preferred Skills, Knowledge and Abilities:

• Fluent in Spanish.
• Experience facilitating conversations.

Reporting To This Position: n/a

Physical Demands and Working Conditions:

• Must be able to perform the essential duties of the position with or without reasonable accommodation
• Physical Demands:
o Required to move about in an office environment and sit for extended periods of time
o Required to move about in the community
o Frequent use of hands for data entry/keystrokes and simple grasping.
• Working Conditions:
o Moderate noise level
• Willingness and ability to work varied shifts.

Diversity creates a healthier atmosphere: All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, protected veteran status, disability status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law.
We are committed to hiring a breadth of diverse professionals and encourage members of diverse groups to apply.

 

For additional information about this position, please contact: