Deputy News Editor

Trading as emap for its B2B division, Metropolis International is a fast-growing business, privately owned Media Group with over £50m of annual revenue, structured in two divisions – consumer media, and business-to-business media. In both parts of the business, we run print magazines, digital content and both face-to-face and virtual awards, conferences, and other events. Metropolis is actively looking at acquiring more media businesses. We employ over 480 people in offices in West London, Croydon, Fleet street,  Devon and Dublin.

Property Week is the leading provider of news, insight and events for the UK commercial and residential property industry. The news team delivers regular updates for a highly engaged audience of paying subscribers, both in print and online.

Overall Purpose of the Role:

You will be an experienced keen and curious journalist, ideally with several years’ professional experience of news gathering for a demanding business audience.

Experience of working to daily deadlines for news is required as is a proven ability to undertake long-form journalism such as features and in-depth interviews.

At heart, this role offers a fantastic opportunity for an ambitious journalist to create brilliant content and help inspire a wider editorial team. You will demonstrate a high standard of quality journalism, serving the interests of an engaged audience of subscribers. Property is a nationally significant industry, and you will be in a position to break big stories ahead of the mainstream media.

Your confidence and experience will help you to cultivate contacts across the full spectrum of property professions and policy makers, including finance, project development, real estate sales, house building, construction, law, consulting, surveying, planning, think-tanks, local government and central government.

As Deputy News Editor, you will support PW’s News Editor by generating as many off-diary stories as possible to strengthen our position as a ‘must-read’ for the industry.

You will also stand in for the News Editor in their absence, overseeing all of PW’s digital-first news, chairing news meetings and assessing which stories to pursue, working with the Editor and Deputy Editor to co-ordinate news reporting across the PW team.

Key responsibilities:

Sourcing and writing high-quality news stories to strict daily deadlines.

Researching and producing long-form features and interviews when required.

Representing the brand at industry events.

Cultivating good relationships with industry contacts.

Developing and maintaining an understanding of the property industry and its concerns

Supporting/standing in for the News Editor as required. This would involve:

–              Chairing news meetings and tackling the first edit of news material

–              Selecting and editing news articles for print and allocating stories/managing output across the news team.

Monitoring the output of rival media

Supporting the News Editor in delivering editorial output that is legal, of high quality, and meets the needs of PW’s audience

Collaborating with PW production and digital staff to ensure material is speedily readied for publication, and that PW stories achieve their full potential using analytics and social media.

Skills and experience:

Sufficient journalism experience to be comfortable managing others as well as your own work.

Familiar with the demands of writing news for an audience of business subscribers.

Able to build and maintain the network of contacts needed to deliver exclusive stories.

Consistently delivers stories with a sharp headline, strong angle and a clear flow of facts.

A good grasp of journalism law and how to write effectively about a litigious industry.

Experience of working with fast-paced, digital-first formats is preferable, as is familiarity with using analytics to help raise the performance of editorial output

The ability to tackle multiple tasks simultaneously.

Ideally with an interest in business finance and politics as well as the built environment.

Core competencies:

Demonstrable B2B journalism skills with a strong portfolio of published news stories.

Comfortable with speaking to senior industry figures and keen to get exclusive news.

Comfortable with the demands of digital-first publications.

Good at spotting stories in financial reports and government data.

Skilled at developing stories with follow-up reports, including those broken by other publications.

Organised, able to plan ahead and to prioritise competing tasks.

Ready to begin managing others.

Personal Attributes:

Organised and able to plan, ideally with some experience of managing the work of other people

A good communicator, able to think on your feet

Able to speedily assimilate information, make quick decisions, and react to rapid developments

Confident, self-motivated, and determined to produce work of high quality

A team player who enjoys contributing to long-term shared goals

Competitive and keen to outdo rival publications.

Motivated to share insights and help the development of less experienced colleagues