Description

A new position, the Director of The CivicLex Weekly will serve as the leadership for CivicLex’s flagship news and civic information product, The CivicLex Weekly.

The CivicLex Weekly is the foundation of CivicLex’s civic information program — a news product built to help residents make sense of local government. Its reporting focuses on explaining how local government works and how decisions are made in a simple and straightforward way without opinion, narrative, partisanship, or commentary. The Weekly’s goal is to give residents clear, factual, and practical information they can use to take part in the decisions that shape their community.

Widely celebrated in the nonprofit news industry, CivicLex is the winner of the LION Publishers’ Business of the Year and Operational Resilience Awards. The CivicLex Weekly is poised for expansion, with plans to hire new multiple reporting positions in coming months and years. We are looking for an ambitious, driven, candidate who wants to help The CivicLex Weekly build on its role as a nationally-recognized model for civic information and guide its next phase of growth in Lexington.

This position is designed as a hybrid leadership and reporting role. Initially, the Director will cover Lexington’s local government and deeply learn CivicLex’s civic information model. Over the first year of the position, the Director will gradually assume leadership of CivicLex’s newsroom: setting editorial priorities, managing growth, and guiding long-term strategy. Eventually, the bulk of the reporting will be handed over to a City Hall Reporter role to be hired in 2026.

Throughout this transition, the position will receive one-on-one coaching and mentorship from an acclaimed veteran editor of a major daily newspaper, focused on strengthening reporting, editing, and newsroom management skills.

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Key Responsibilities:
City Hall Reporting

• Attend Urban County Council meetings, committee sessions, and other local government events.
• Report clearly and accurately on policy, budgets, planning, and other civic issues in an accessible and grounded way.
• Build and maintain relationships with elected officials, LFUCG staff, and community stakeholders.
• Write and produce CivicLex’s weekly email newsletter, and regularly create content for its standalone local news website — including forward-looking stories, issue explainers, and news recaps.

Editorial Leadership and Strategy

• Gradually assume leadership of CivicLex’s newsroom: setting coverage priorities and maintaining editorial vision.
• Supervise and mentor newsroom staff, contributors, and interns as the team grows over the next several years.
• Manage operations, editorial standards, and long-term content strategy.
• Represent CivicLex’s newsroom publicly and with funders, partners, and collaborators, both locally and at national convenings.
• Collaborate with CivicLex’s leadership team to integrate The CivcLex Weekly into the organization’s broader civic health work.

Community Engagement

• Represent CivicLex publicly and participate in community events.
• Engage with residents to ensure coverage reflects community needs, perspectives, and priorities.
• Respond to public inquiries and provide clear, factual information about local government processes.

Strategic Contribution

• Collaborate with CivicLex’s leadership team to shape editorial priorities and long-term vision.
• Identify emerging civic trends and information gaps in Lexington’s local media ecosystem.
• Contribute to organizational planning, grant reporting, and cross-program collaboration to integrate journalism into CivicLex’s broader civic health work.

Benefits & Compensation:

• $50,000 annual starting salary.
• Generous employer-paid health and vision insurance for employees.
• 4% matching retirement contributions, immediately vested.
• Annual allotment of flexible personal and professional development funds.
• Frequent fully funded travel opportunities.
• Generous paid time off, including federal holidays, four weeks of general office closure, and an additional eight required days — totaling approximately 35 work days per year.
• Additional unlimited, discretionary paid time off as approved by policy.
• Flexible scheduling and hybrid work options.
• Modest relocation stipend available if moving from outside of Kentucky.

Requirements

• 3+ years of experience in journalism, communications, public policy, or related fields involving writing, reporting, or public engagement.
• Demonstrated ability to produce clear, accurate, and engaging stories about complex topics.
• Strong interpersonal skills - comfortable building relationships with civic leaders, public officials, and community members of all backgrounds.
• Ability to analyze, interpret, and explain complex policy and process information to a general audience.
• Organized, self-directed, and able to manage multiple priorities in a fast-moving environment.
• Experience in editorial planning, mentoring, or newsroom coordination preferred.
• Commitment to nonpartisan reporting and ethical journalism standards.
• Passion for civic engagement, transparency, and public service journalism.
• Facility and experience with digital and social media platforms and reporting/content tools.