Now Hiring: An Editorial Assistant for Burlington Buzz

Update: This position has been filled. Thanks to all who expressed interest. Keep an eye out for more opportunities to contribute to community connection in Burlington as the Buzz continues to grow!

As readers know, Burlington Buzz is the award-winning nonpartisan daily news source focused on enhancing community connection in Burlington, Massachusetts, through providing news coverage about local government and current events. We hold ourselves to a high standard for editorial production and engagement with our community, and we are committed to building our stories alongside the Burlington community.

For most of the last two years, Burlington Buzz has been a one-woman show. As we take the next step in deepening our roots as a news business, we are seeking an editorial assistant for Burlington Buzz to help manage things like newsletter and website templates, the event calendar, the email inbox, and social media planning.

The ideal candidate for this role is organized, has strong attention to detail, and is interested in municipal government and community engagement. The person does not have to live in Burlington, so feel free to share this posting with someone who is seeking 10-15 hours per week of flexible work at a rate of $25 per hour. You don't need to be an expert in all these skills to be the perfect candidate for this role. If you're interested and don't fit neatly into this mold, don't let that stop you from reaching out!

Please send questions, resumes, and cover letters to hello@burlington.buzz.

Job Description: Part-Time Editorial Assistant for Burlington Buzz

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience (it's OK if you're still working toward this!)
• Experience or interest in journalism
• Experience or interest in municipal government and how cities and towns operate
• Experience using Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and (optional) NextDoor
• Organization and attention to detail
• Professionalism in communication and the ability to write clearly and concisely with a personality
• Ability to plan and prioritize tasks
• Willingness to interface with the public, other media organizations, subjects, and readers
• Familiarity with website and other back-end administration

Job Responsibilities

• Manage the Buzz’s main email inbox, forwarding, tagging, and replying to emails as necessary, prioritizing and acting on:
  • Press releases & story ideas (Suggest stories for the Buzz content calendar)
  • Questions & comments
  • Subscription issues
• Manage the Buzz’s event calendar, accepting and posting new events and running sponsorships as they come up
• Research, interview subjects, and write articles about topics such as local business and resident profiles, upcoming events in arts & entertainment, and high school athletics and extracurriculars
• Set up the frameworks for the Buzz’s daily newsletters and website stories
• Manage the Buzz’s media library
• Watch and summarize key points of municipal government meetings as needed
• Attend a weekly virtual stand-up to discuss the vision and priorities for the week ahead
• Manage the Buzz’s social media channels, including planning, creating, posting, and engaging (This might be broken out into a separate position, but an Editorial Assistant who can also manage social media would be awesome!)

In collaboration with supervisor:

• Plan and execute community events such as the Civic Expo
• Plan and lay out seasonal Guides to Burlington
• Edit and proofread articles from outside columnists