Freelance News Director Jobs (NOW HIRING)

About KUNC
At KUNC, our mission is simple: to serve the diverse communities of Northern Colorado by delivering independent, insightful, and inclusive journalism. We believe in the power of storytelling to foster understanding, empathy, and connection, and we're committed to producing content that reflects the voices and experiences of our region.

KUNC brings you the best in news, music, and culture from Northern Colorado and beyond. Since our founding in 1967, we've provided our listeners with quality programming that informs, entertains, and enriches their lives.

As a public radio station, KUNC is driven by a commitment to public service and the principles of journalism. Our team of experienced reporters, producers, and hosts work tirelessly to bring you the latest news and analysis on issues that matter most to our community. Whether it's local politics, environmental issues, or cultural events, you can count on KUNC to keep you informed and engaged.

The Opportunity
KUNC is seeking an experienced and collaborative News Director to guide a highly respected public media newsroom through an exciting period of focus, innovation, and audience growth.

This is a senior leadership role. In addition to strong journalism instincts and daily production expertise, the ideal candidate will bring a clear editorial vision, a people-centered approach to management, and a demonstrated ability to build effective systems that support excellent multi-channel journalism. Successful candidates will bring experience leading meaningful, forward-looking change in a newsroom or content organization. They are comfortable leading in all directions such as supporting staff, collaborating across teams, and managing up, and are equally skilled at empowering their team while setting clear, consistent expectations.

The News Director will play a key role in setting priorities, communicating clearly, and creating a supportive and accountable environment where staff can thrive. This person will strengthen KUNC’s journalism across platforms while expanding how audiences connect with our work.

The News Director will ensure KUNC produces timely journalism that gives audiences something they cannot easily get elsewhere: humanity, accountability, local knowledge, trusted explanation, and a clear sense of why the story matters. KUNC’s journalism should explain, connect, verify, and deepen public understanding of how decisions, systems, policies, culture, economy, environment, and community change affect people in Northern Colorado.

Location: Greeley/Fort Collins, Colorado
Reports to: President & CEO
Supervises: journalism staff, including reporters, editors, and other journalism roles as assigned.
Status: full-time, exempt

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES Editorial leadership and standards

• Lead KUNC’s 12-person newsroom in daily news operations with excellent news judgment, strong ethical standards, and a clear commitment to trusted, independent public service journalism.
• Develop editorial routines and implement planning systems that support strong story generation, sharp focus, distinctive storytelling, deeper sourcing, clear digital presentation, and intentional distribution across multiple platforms with a digital-first lens.
• Set editorial priorities for local and regional coverage, using KUNC’s strategic plan, audience needs, community value, opportunities for growth, membership base and ratings/data.
• Set clear expectations for when a story belongs in a newscast, when it needs a fuller feature or enterprise approach, how it should lead digitally, and when it should be distributed across multiple platforms.
• Ensure KUNC’s journalism reflects the communities it serves with accuracy, fairness, relevance, inclusion, and public impact.
• Maintain and enforce high standards for reporting, writing, editing, audio production, digital publishing, sourcing, ethics, and editorial independence. Make clear editorial choices about what KUNC should cover, pivot away from, and where the newsroom can provide the most value.
• Analyze and value strategic partnerships.

Audience strategy and platform leadership

• Actively use audience data, KPIs, platform performance, and community feedback to regularly guide story planning, publishing decisions, distribution strategy, and workflow improvements.
• Treat broadcast, web, newsletters, podcasts, social media, streaming, and community events as connected parts of one journalism strategy.

Budget and department management

• Develop, manage and monitor the newsroom department budget covering 12 staff members, freelancers and newsroom resources.
• Make thoughtful budget-informed decisions about freelance support, travel, training, equipment, special projects, partnerships, and editorial priorities.
• Track overall expenses, project expenses, plan for department needs, and communicate budget opportunities or concerns to the President & CEO.

Change management and workflow leadership

• Lead meaningful and strategic newsroom change with clarity, empathy, accountability, and follow-through.
• Build a digital-first pitch-to-publish workflow to maximize story development and reach to both online and radio audiences.
• Manage and lead adoption of newsroom workflows for story planning, assignment, editing, publishing, communication, breaking news response, project management, and cross-platform distribution.
• Inspire staff to adopt new tools, expectations, routines, formats, and performance standards.
• Apply experience with using AI ethically in reporting and analysis.
• Create a newsroom culture that values experimentation, learning, accountability, collaboration, and steady improvement.

People management and HR responsibilities

• Supervise, coach, and develop newsroom staff and other content workers as assigned.
• Set clear expectations, provide regular feedback, conduct performance conversations, support professional development, and address performance concerns in a timely and appropriate manner.
• Deliver on measurable department goals, editorial expectations, reporter output goals, publishing targets, productivity benchmarks, and performance indicators.
• Address conflict professionally and constructively, including interpersonal tensions, workflow problems, performance issues, communication breakdowns, and resistance to change.

Executive communication and leadership judgment

• Serve as a trusted senior leadership partner with the President & CEO.
• Manage with clarity, professionalism, and consistency.
• Operate independently while knowing when executive leadership needs to be involved.
• Communicate early about sensitive coverage, staff concerns, budget issues, legal or HR risks, public reputation, donor or funder implications, major partnerships, and strategic shifts.

Required qualifications

• At least six years of journalism or content leadership experience, including direct responsibility for editorial decision-making.
• At least three years of direct people-management experience, including supervision, coaching, performance feedback, hiring, onboarding, documentation, and accountability.
• Demonstrated experience leading, editing, and coaching high-quality audio journalism, including daily news, feature, enterprise, and explanatory journalism with experience extending that work across digital and on-demand platforms.
• At least one year of developing and/or being directly responsible for a budget.
• Demonstrated experience setting and using KPIs for newsroom performance, audience growth, publishing goals, or product development.
• Demonstrated experience using audience data, KPIs, analytics, or performance information to make editorial and operational decisions.
• Experience successfully managing staff through organizational transition and new ways of working/accountability.
• Strong editorial judgment and a deep commitment to accuracy, fairness, ethics, independence, and public service journalism.
• Experience editing and coaching features, enterprise, explanatory, audio, and digital journalism.
• Demonstrated commitment to grow or strengthen audience beyond broadcast, including social media, newsletters, podcasts, web, video, search, live events, or other digital/community platforms.
• Experience setting, managing, and evaluating reporter output expectations in ways that balance quality, audience value, staff capacity, and organizational priorities.
• Ability to manage appropriately, lead across departments, and supervise staff with clarity and accountability.
• Must be willing to reside in or commute to Fort Collins four days a week.

Preferred qualifications

• Experience leading local or regional journalism in a changing media environment.
• Experience building audience growth strategies for news content across broadcast and non-broadcast platforms.
• Experience refining newsroom productivity through planning systems, editing routines, beat management, story calendars, assignment discipline, and performance feedback.
• Familiarity with Northern Colorado, Colorado, or Western issues and communities.

Compensation and benefits

Salary range: $100,000-$120,000, commensurate with experience.

• health insurance
• dental
• vision
• paid time off
• holidays
• professional development
• hybrid work options

Equal opportunity statement

KUNC / Community Radio for Northern Colorado is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to building a team that reflects the communities we serve and to creating a workplace grounded in respect, inclusion, accountability, and public service. We encourage candidates from all backgrounds and experiences to apply.