Night/Weekend Editor

Editorial

Full Time

Remote

About The Center Square

The Center Square is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit national newswire service headquartered in Chicago with staff deployed across the country. We produce original, taxpayer-focused government accountability journalism for more than 1,360 local, state, and national media partners, reaching 141 million Americans daily.

Focus on the size, scope, cost, and effectiveness of government is our distinct lane, and has been the key to The Center Square's unprecedented growth as a U.S. news brand. At a time when news media is contracting, and media trust is waning, The Center Square is growing rapidly by providing original news that is well reported, fair, and focused on covering government for the people and holding those in power to account.

We call it The Center Square Way. It means we hold government accountable by showing people what their government is doing, what it costs them, and what it means for the taxpayers, businesses and communities where they live. Our reporters do not write opinion. Our editors do not tolerate it. We compete on accuracy, velocity and frequency — filing more stories, faster, with fewer errors than anyone else covering this beat. Every story goes through a backfield editing system designed to catch what other newsrooms miss. That’s not a slogan. It’s how we operate, every day, across every state we cover.

The Center Square has grown from a startup in 2019 to one of the most widely distributed newswire services in the country — because media partners trust our copy and readers trust our approach. We intend to keep earning that trust.

We operate as professionals. We compensate our employees well and offer a generous benefit plan.

The Role

The Night/Weekend Editor is The Center Square’s sentinel on watch when the core staff has called it a day. You’re the editor who catches news that breaks after 5 p.m. Eastern Wednesday through Friday and during the day Saturday and Sunday — fast-files it, pushes the breaking-news alert, and keeps TCS’s internal team and 1,360+ partner outlets informed of what’s moving across the country after hours.

TCS operates as a true national newswire. We have personnel working in all four Continental U.S. time zones and partners in Alaska and Hawaii. When the East Coast desk signs off at 5 p.m., reporters in Denver, Phoenix, Seattle, and Honolulu are still mid-cycle — and the news they file, and the news breaking in their states, is yours to move.

The watch is government accountability first: federal agency moves, court rulings, statehouse special sessions, governor announcements timed to dodge the daytime press cycle, congressional action that lands on a Friday night. It also extends to natural disasters and public events of mass interest — the kind of breaking news where our partners expect a wire service to deliver, regardless of the hour.

You’re also the backstop for the regional editors as the day moves along. Reporter copy doesn’t stop coming in at 5 p.m. — stories filed at 5:30, 6:15, 7:30 p.m. Eastern need an editor who can move them through to publication on the same news cycle they were filed in. That work is critical. It’s what keeps TCS reporters trusting that filing late doesn’t mean filing tomorrow, and it’s what keeps our partners receiving fresh copy through the evening.

This role is also TCS’s nightside trend monitor. The biggest stories of the next news cycle often surface first on social media — local print outlets, regional TV affiliates, video accounts, citizen documentation — hours before they break broadly across U.S. news media. Your job is to find them. Local, state, and national news monitoring across social channels is how TCS keeps pace with — and establishes pace ahead of — every other U.S. newswire service. The stories that fall outside the traditional workday are the ones that improve our product for our partners. You’re the editor who surfaces them.

This is a working editor’s job. Hands on the keyboard. Eyes on every state. Fast, independent, on-brand decisions on deadline. You won’t have a daytime editor in the next chair — you’ll have the judgment to know what we cover, what we don’t, and what we cover first. The wire doesn’t sleep.

You bring several years of news reporting and editing experience, understand TCS’s mission of accountability journalism with a taxpayer focus, and exercise sound news judgment under pressure. Local-market editors who have worked in fast-paced environments and journalists with newswire experience will thrive in this role.

The Communication Loop

The work of this role lives or dies on communication. You’ll operate inside a direct loop with:

Dan McCaleb, Chief Content Officer / Executive Editor — your reporting line and the editorial backstop on major calls.
Alan Wooten, Managing Editor — for inbound reporter copy after hours, geographic coordination, and morning hand-offs.
Arthur Kane, Managing Editor — for inbound enterprise and investigative copy, and the hand-offs that go with it.
John Derr, Director of Partnerships — for partner-side awareness when a story warrants amplification or a partner needs a heads-up.

When news breaks on your watch, this loop knows. When reporter copy lands after the regional editors are out, you move it. When you spot a trend on social media before it lands in mainstream coverage, you surface it. When you hand off into the morning cycle, this loop knows. That communication is what allows TCS to operate as a true wire service across all hours.

What You’ll Do

Be a news hawk. Monitor news sites, social media, statehouse feeds, federal agency releases, and court dockets for breaking and developing stories across all 50 states. Report, write, and self-edit at wire speed.
Back up the regional editors. When reporter copy comes in after 5:30 p.m. Eastern, you’re the editor who moves it — top-edit, headline, publish, push. Stories don’t sit until morning on your watch.
Spot the story before it breaks. Track local, state, and national social media — print outlets, TV affiliates, video channels, citizen accounts — for trending news that hasn’t yet broken broadly across U.S. media. Surface it. Assign it. File it. This is how TCS sets pace.
Send the alert. When news breaks, fast-file the story and push the breaking-news alert through TCS’s internal and partner channels.
Cover the full watch. Government accountability is the spine; natural disasters and public events of mass interest are part of the assignment when they break after hours.
Communicate up and across. Keep Dan, the managing editors, and partnerships in the loop on breaking developments, trend signals, hand-offs into the next morning, and stories worth amplifying.
Hold the standard. Every story you touch should reflect TCS editorial standards: taxpayer-focused, opinion-free, accurate, filed at wire speed.
Find the story others miss. The best breaking news isn’t always the loudest. Wire service editors don’t wait for press releases. Our reporters are not stenographers.
Track the field. Monitor what competitors are covering, what they’re missing, and where The Center Square can own the story overnight.

What You Bring

A real background in journalism — reporting and editing — across print and digital.
Strong writing, strong editing, strong news instincts, strong verbal and written communication.
Fluency in social media as a news-gathering tool — the ability to read signal from noise across local, state, and national channels in both print and video.
The ability to make fast, independent, on-brand decisions on deadline without a daytime editor in the next chair.
The ability to top-edit and publish inbound reporter copy at wire speed.
The ability to find original stories and break them.
An entrepreneurial mindset. You’ll work independently, manage your time, solve problems, and keep the coverage machine running without being told to.
A commitment to the principles of personal responsibility and free enterprise.
U.S.-based. Bachelor’s degree or higher preferred.

The Center Square is competing for the trust of the American public every day. If you want to be part of a fast-moving, fast-growing organization committed to the highest ethical standards in the industry, we want to hear from you.

How to apply: Email resume, cover letter, and links to writing samples to jobs@thecentersquare.com.