Your New Role...
The Audience Editor is the embedded, desk-specific partner to Audience Strategy & Insights, translating audience signals into clear editorial choices. You will supply the desk with essential performance learnings; shape framing, formats, and distribution to meet audience demand; and collaborate across Search, Social, Home, Newsletters, and Product to maximize reach, habit, and engagement (including among subscribers).
This role sits at the intersection of editorial judgment and evidence-collaborative, rigorous in approach, and focused on measurable outcomes. You will work closely within our Audience Strategy & Insights operating model and in partnership with DART (Data, Analytics, Research & Testing) to turn insights into action and build repeatable practices the desk can rely on.
Your Role Accountabilities...
Performance Insights & Editorial Guidance
- Deliver concise, actionable daily/weekly/monthly insights that guide coverage decisions and follow-ups.
- Suggest stories, angles, and formats grounded in search intent, off-platform behavior, competitive patterns, and audience demand.
- Interpret quantitative and qualitative signals to shape framing and presentation on platform (site/app, home, article packaging, recirculation) and off platform (search, social, alerts, newsletters).
Cross-Platform Strategy & Collaboration
- Partner with Product and platform teams (Search, Social, Home, Newsletters) to identify opportunities in modules, templates, topic hubs, and alerting.
- Drive reach, engagement, and habit by aligning desk plans to audience goals and capturing learnings in structured retros and playbooks.
- Coordinate packaging and distribution across Off-Platform, Distribution, Community, Programming, and Newsletter teams.
Desk Support & Operational Cadence
- Contribute to daily, weekly, and monthly audience updates, synthesizing insights into desk and section reviews.
- Evaluate the desk's presence and strategy across platforms; identify growth opportunities in formats and account strategy.
- Coach the desk on best practices for social, search, and packaging; lead quick tests and document learnings.
- Optimize for discoverability via trend identification, audience demand research, evergreen refinement, and intent matching-partnering with Search on best practices.
- Uphold CNN's journalistic mission by using data to inform editorial decisions.
Qualifications & Experience... - 3+ years in digital journalism, audience or content strategy, or analytics.
- Strong ability to spot coverage, framing, and format opportunities that drive reach and engagement.
- Skilled at interpreting data and partnering with analytics to shape on- and off-platform presentation.
- Experience working with Search, Social, Home, Community, Notifications, and Newsletter teams.
- Clear, action-oriented communicator who contributes regularly to audience performance updates.
- Ability to write and coach platform-native social copy.
- Committed to journalistic independence and mission-aligned decisions.
- Fluent in search trends, intent shifts, and misinformation dynamics.
- Deep social platform expertise with strong tone and brand stewardship.
- Strong writing/editing instincts for headlines, display, and framing.
- Comfortable with testing, iteration, and directional reads.
- Skilled at bridging editorial, product, analytics, design, and research.
- Strong understanding of competitive landscape and attention patterns.
How We Get Things Done...This last bit is probably the most important! Here at WBD, our guiding principles are the core values by which we operate and are central to how we get things done. You can find them at www.wbd.com/guiding-principles/ along with some insights from the team on what they mean and how they show up in their day to day. We hope they resonate with you and look forward to discussing them during your interview.
