Founded in 2011, Wonkhe is the home of the higher education debate, leading the national conversation about higher education policy and universities in the UK.
We supply critical intelligence and information services to the higher education sector through our daily email briefings, publish articles and analysis from within our team and a diverse range of sector voices on Wonkhe.com, and build connections across our community of higher education professionals through our public and private events. We also have a thriving community of students’ union subscribers and we work with a wide range of partner organisations that share our goals and support our work.
We are a small, driven team, working at a fast pace, that values autonomy, creativity and quality. Our readers trust the analysis and information we provide, and use it to inform their thinking and professional lives in higher education. We all have a big commitment to the success of universities, and we expect everyone in the team to share that goal.
The role
The news editor forms a critical part of our editorial work, driving the engine of our output alongside our specialist higher education policy editors. The work starts with intelligence gathering and reporting, building contacts and networks with comms and press offices across the sector and outside it, working out who’s going to say what and when – and reporting as they do – all to ensure that we remain ahead of the curve and able to plan all our editorial output.
Using that intel, the news editor will play a crucial role in compiling our flagship daily email briefing – The Wonkhe Daily, and similarly help produce our weekly podcast The Wonkhe Show, our weekly newsletter Wonkhe Mondays, and lead on a forthcoming new feature on Wonkhe.com that connects all of these with news and information for our subscribing universities.
The role reports to Wonkhe’s editor Debbie McVitty who is currently on maternity leave for the remainder of 2022, so an interim structure will take effect in the mean time. Wonkhe is a fully remote organisation, although we meet for semi regular in-person team meetings in London, and you can expect to attend other meetings and events in London and around the UK. We supply you with everything you need to work effectively without a fixed office.
Person specification
- A news hound with a strong interest in current affairs, politics and policy developments. An extra interest and understanding of higher education, in particular, would be an advantage.
- Established contacts in higher education, media or political circles and a proven track record of networking and relationship-building for impact.
- Highly developed writing skills, and experience of writing about complex topics in an accessible way.
- Ability to process large amounts of information, spotting the important angles.
- Ability to organise and manage a diverse workload, prioritise tasks, and reliably produce high-quality work to tight deadlines.
- A self-starter, comfortable with working remotely and flexibly without close supervision.
- Strong attention to detail and an ability to get it right the first time.
- Comfortable working across a wide range of digital tools and able to learn new ones quickly as the need arises.
- An open and collaborative approach to facilitate the smooth running of a small team.
Job description
Newsgathering. You will always be on the hunt for news that’s of importance to our readers – from listening in to parliamentary debates to attending in-person events, to monitoring social media, to finding obscure government publications and more – you will use every tool at your disposal to keep ahead of higher education news, building close relationships with key contacts as you go. You’ll be summarising the salient points of what you find in clear, crisp, and spirited words across a variety of media.
Powering the Wonkhe’s intelligence grid. You will hunt down a huge variety of sources of information and intelligence, and translate it into our grid to ensure we always know what’s going to happen in advance so that we can plan our editorial activity.
A leading role in Wonkhe’s email briefings. You will play an important role in the production of all our daily and weekly briefings, ensuring content is produced in a timely way, including parliamentary content, news and media, policy developments, and the agenda section – typically with a daily deadline of the close of business the working day before the next briefing.
Supporting all Wonkhe general editorial activity. You will support the commissioning, editing and writing of Wonkhe articles, liaising with contributors, undertaking research, managing the publication of content to the website, and keeping our style guild up to date, and other activities relating to editorial.
Podcast. You will support the production of The Wonkhe Show, booking and briefing guests on the issues of the week and lining up other content as required.
Other activity as required… Wonkhe is a small team and so there’s always an opportunity to get involved and pitch in with everything else we do, e.g. our event programme.
To apply email mark@wonkhe.com with a CV and covering letter setting out how you meet the person specification for the role no later than 17.30 Friday 1 July. Also get in touch if you’d like an informal chat first.
Do not delay in applying, as we may appoint sooner than the deadline if we find the right candidate.