Dear English-speaking copy editor*,

Glad you could find the time to read this. We’re looking for you, because we at The Correspondent are on a global mission to change journalism and we need your help. 

We're hiring for a copy editor based in our Amsterdam office.

*At The Correspondent we use the term 'copy editor' though some newsrooms might prefer 'sub-editor'

The Correspondent is the English language expansion of De Correspondent, a Dutch platform for collaborative, ad-free and inclusive journalism – or what we call ‘unbreaking news’.

At De Correspondent we don’t chase the latest headlines, but create in-depth stories, podcasts, video and infographics on larger issues like climate change, AI and migration.

We do this in collaboration with our members, who are invited to share their knowledge and experience with our correspondents. 

In November 2018, De Correspondent launched a crowdfunding campaign to expand our ‘unbreaking news’ platform to the English-speaking world. By December, we had raised $2.7 million from over 40.000 members around the world.

On September 30, 2019, The Correspondent – the English language extension of our platform – will launch, and we are looking for a brilliant self-starting copy editor to help us make it happen!

About the job

When we launch in September, we’ll have about ten English-language full-time and freelance correspondents, and five Dutch correspondents whose articles will be translated into English.

On an average day you’ll be working with our English-language authors on early drafts of their stories, but also performing final checks on translated Dutch articles that are about to be published.

You’ll read and edit stories, check them for style, structure, grammar, and make sure they are up to our journalistic standards and in service to The Correspondent’s mission.

This is a full-time position. You’ll be part of our team of editors, translators and proofreaders, and collaborate daily with our engagement team, who work on our social media presence and newsletters. As we’re a small team, there’ll be lots of room for your input and ideas.

You’ll report directly to our team lead and you’ll work with our managing editor Eliza Anyangwe on a daily basis.

About us

We are Anna Vossers, Marnix de Bruyne and Hans Pieter van Stein Callenfels, copy editors at De Correspondent.

Our daily job is making sure that the Dutch platform’s 62,000 members get high quality articles, podcasts and videos on the website and delivered to their inboxes every day.

When not working, Anna likes to go rowing, running, hiking or read big books. Marnix worked a while as a correspondent in Johannesburg, and never lost his love for Southern Africa. HP likes to spend his free time on the water, windsurfing or sailing, or rocking out playing guitar with his live karaoke band Amaezing Snäke. 

About you

Here’s what we’d like you to bring to the job:

• Obviously, you're a native-level English speaker with the right to work in the European Union. You live and breathe stories, in all formats but especially narrative journalism or other kinds of non-fiction writing. You’re a stickler for good grammar, uncompromising in your search for evidence that supports a story, and know a thing or two about writing creative, engaging headlines and story leads.
• A significant part of your work will be giving our correspondents (in different time zones and from different cultures) constructive feedback on their work. As such, you need excellent communication skills. You know that getting the most out of different people requires different approaches.
• Related to the above, we are keen for someone to bring a voice and worldview currently not represented in our team. The three of us are all Dutch, humanities graduates, with about 45 years combined experience in Dutch newsrooms. We’re convinced that applicants from gender identities, ages, ethnicities or cultures different from ours will greatly improve our journalism as we build our global platform. While you do not need to have copy editing experience gained in a newsroom, you will need transferable skills, gained over three to five years, so you can hit the ground running when you join.
• We’re an online platform, with a CMS we’ve built ourselves, and we use a range of digital communications and project management tools (such as Slack and Trello) so you’ll need to be digitally savvy, though previous experience using the above tools isn’t essential.
• You’ll need to be able to work well under pressure, to prioritise while always working accurately, and sometimes quickly.
• You have an international perspective and are keen to get stuck into building a global English-language newsroom. You will be interested in finding out what’s important for our readers, so we can create a house style that is distinctive, and in service to The Correspondent’s mission.
• Legal knowledge is certainly useful.

What we’re offering:

• First and foremost, you’ll be part of an organization that values ideas over job titles, collaboration over hierarchy, and quality over speed.
• You’ll have a lot of freedom in doing your work and lots of room to grow in your job and career.
• You’ll be part of a team of more than 70 colleagues who are hugely passionate about the future of collaborative, inclusive and ad-free journalism.
• You’ll have the opportunity to collaborate with members from all over the world and build knowledge networks that will benefit our journalism in new and exciting ways.
• You’ll earn a competitive salary with benefits, including a pension plan, sick leave, paid vacation, social security, disability income protection, and lunch.
• You’ll be provided with the necessary tools to do your work well, like a company laptop.
• You’ll work in a nice canalside office – with outside terrace – in the center of Amsterdam, a walk of 15 minutes from Central Station (so yeah, if you don’t already live here, you’ll need to move here – or near here – but of course we’ll help you with finding a place).

Write to us!

Interested? We very much look forward to hearing from you. If you click 'APPLY', you'll be presented with a couple of questions and an assignment we'd like you to complete.

You can apply until Sunday 21 July at 23:00 CEST.