Senior Editor, Visuals, CNN

Warner Bros. Discovery•Washington, DC

1d•$79,800 - $148,199•Hybrid

About The Position

CNN's global Visuals team is seeking a senior editor to help lead visual journalism during critical late-day and evening news hours. This is an editorial leadership and people-management role for an experienced visual journalist who can guide breaking news coverage, shape ambitious enterprise projects, and help teams produce clear, accurate, and distinctive storytelling across formats. This editor will work closely with CNN’s news desks and with designers, data journalists, developers, reporters, and other editors across the global Visuals team. The role involves identifying the strongest visual opportunities across the news cycle, assigning and editing work, overseeing story design, and ensuring CNN’s visual journalism serves audiences with clarity, creativity, and urgency. The ideal candidate is an excellent editor and calm newsroom leader who can move easily between a breaking news situation, a visual story pitch, a line edit, a design review, and a conversation about a team member’s development. This role is intended to strengthen CNN’s late-day and evening coverage and will ideally be based on the West Coast or work an East Coast schedule that includes evening hours.

Requirements

At least 7 years of experience in a newsroom or comparable editorial environment, including experience editing visual or data-driven journalism.
Experience managing visual journalists and supporting their day-to-day work, long-term development, and career growth.
Impeccable news judgment and the ability to lead calmly and decisively during breaking news.
A proven ability to edit both visual storytelling and text, from early framing and reporting through final publication.
Strong visual judgment and experience reviewing story design, data visualization, interactives, maps, and other graphics formats.
A track record of identifying strong story ideas and pushing storytelling beyond obvious or incremental approaches.
A strong representative of the Visuals team within a wider organization: you build positive cross-team relationships and champion visual journalism as essential to coverage.
Excellent communication skills and comfort working with senior newsroom leaders, reporters, editors, designers, data journalists, and developers.
Experience balancing fast-turn breaking news coverage with medium- and long-term enterprise projects.
A reader-first perspective and strong commitment to clarity, accuracy, and multiplatform storytelling.
Curiosity and openness to experimenting with new storytelling formats, platforms, and emerging technologies.

Nice To Haves

Experience editing or leading elections coverage, including familiarity with election results, political data, and map-driven storytelling, is strongly preferred.
Familiarity with modern data, mapping, design, and visualization tools is helpful, but deep technical expertise is not required.

Responsibilities

Set editorial priorities for the Visuals team during late-day and evening news hours, ensuring strong communication and handoffs across time zones.
Anticipate breaking news coverage needs and lead visual responses across a wide variety of scenarios.
Assign and edit graphics, maps, visual stories, interactives, annotations, and other formats for breaking news, daily coverage, and medium- to long-term enterprise projects.
Edit visual and data-driven stories, including both graphics and text, ensuring clear framing, strong reporting, and journalism-first execution.
Review story structure, design, data analysis, visualizations, and interactive storytelling to ensure they meet rigorous editorial and design standards.
Identify visual opportunities across CNN’s coverage and work proactively with editors and reporters on other desks to develop strong approaches.
Lead major projects in partnership with multiple teams and stakeholders, establishing clear expectations, timelines, and decision-making processes.
Collaborate with platform and distribution teams to strengthen the framing and packaging of visual stories across home screens, apps, and off-platform channels.
Maintain an organized view of assignments, priorities, and handoffs for global coverage.
Manage, mentor, and support a group of visual journalists, providing thoughtful feedback and helping teammates develop their skills and careers.
Refine workflows, document processes, and contribute to a collaborative culture of experimentation and skill-sharing.
Apply audience insights to help shape story ideas, formats, and approaches that resonate with and serve CNN’s audiences.