News Director

MediaCo Holding Inc • Memphis, TN

1d

About The Position

Rincon Broadcasting Group is seeking an experienced, innovative News Director to lead WHBQ-TV, FOX 13 Memphis, our FOX affiliate in Memphis, Tennessee. The News Director will be a strategic, future-focused leader responsible for driving FOX 13’s vision across broadcast, digital, streaming, social, and other emerging platforms. The News Director will champion FOX 13’s commitment to serving the local audience by putting the community first and producing journalism that empowers the people we serve. We are looking for a competitive newsroom leader with strong editorial judgment, a passion for local journalism, and the ability to build, coach and inspire high-performing teams. This role requires a big-picture strategist who can strengthen brand consistency, grow audience engagement, maintain high standards for local journalism, and lead the newsroom through the evolving, ever-changing demands of modern content creation. The ideal candidate will be comfortable using audience data, digital strategy, and technology to create solutions that allow our team to better serve the Memphis community. The News Director must be passionate about developing talent, maintaining and growing audience trust, creating a team culture, and building a newsroom that is urgent, accurate, ethical, creative, and deeply connected to the local community.

Requirements

• 7+ years as a newsroom manager in a broadcast and digital environment
• Bachelor’s degree in Journalism, Communications or related field preferred; or equivalent experience
• Proven record of leadership
• Strong communication, delegation and problem-solving skills
• Strategic thinking

Responsibilities

• Lead the execution of FOX 13’s news brand across broadcast, digital, streaming, and social platforms.
• Set the editorial vision and daily coverage strategy for the newsroom, with a focus on urgent, impactful local journalism.
• Grow storytelling and audience engagement across broadcast, digital, mobile, OTT/streaming, and social media platforms.
• Recruit, coach, mentor and retain a strong, competitive and collaborative news and production team.
• Create and execute innovative systems and strong standards for communication, content planning, storytelling, editorial decisions, workflows and production.
• Use audience data, analytics, and market research to guide coverage decisions, identify growth opportunities, and improve performance across platforms.
• Consistently monitor FOX 13 content across all platforms and provide regular, constructive feedback to the team.
• Champion strong writing, compelling storytelling, live coverage, breaking news execution, severe weather coverage, and enterprise journalism.
• Maintain high editorial, ethical, and legal standards.
• Lead newsroom planning for major events, elections, breaking news, severe weather, community coverage, and special projects.
• Partner with station leadership, the marketing team, the sales team, the digital team, and the production team to support station goals.
• Manage the FOX 13 news budget, staffing and schedules, and operational priorities.
• Create and implement workflow improvements, including use of technology and AI-assisted tools where appropriate, to strengthen journalism, efficiency, community commitment, and team performance.
• Provide clear strategy, direction, goals, and timelines for FOX 13’s news operation, and build systems to ensure those goals are met.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager