Company Profile

Company Description:

Youth Communication (YC) is seeking a Permanent Part-Time Editor. 

New York City residents only. Due to COVID this position may temporarily start out as remote but is an on-site position.

YC helps teens write stories about important personal and social issues. Then, we make their voices heard by publishing those stories in web magazines and in curricula that are read in New York and across the country.

Finding and articulating their voice is transformative for the young writers—and for the peers and adults who read their stories. Typical topics include timeless issues like family, relationships, and identity, and current issues such as the pandemic, discrimination, immigration, foster care, racial equity, and teen activism.

We publish the teens’ stories in two award-winning digital magazines, YCteen and Represent, and in curricula. They reach more than 50,000 young people in NYC public schools and out-of-school programs each year. YCteen is written by New York City public high school students on social, political, and personal issues. Represent is written by teens and young adults in foster care.

Thousands of adults—from practitioners to policy makers—use the stories in instruction and read them to better understand young people’s concerns. Our education department writes lessons and curricula and provides story-based training to hundreds of teachers and other educators. Those educators use the stories to help teens in their classes and programs strengthen social and emotional learning skills, reading skills, and work readiness skills, while also building anti-racist schools and classrooms and supporting gender justice.

The editors at YC work one-on-one with young people between the ages of 15 and 20. Our writers are highly motivated but come with an extremely wide range of writing skills. They are developing their voices and are new to personal essay writing and journalism. The editorial staff currently needs an additional editor to help with editing, research, story development, fact checking, and proofreading. After a few months on the job, the new editor will work directly with several teen writers. A significant part of the job is building a relationship with writers. That takes time. Therefore, we are seeking a candidate who is patient, empathetic, and will stick around as an editor and informal mentor to support these youth, many of whom are vulnerable.

The ideal candidate is a journalist with excellent writing and editing skills, some background in teaching or youth work, and a strong interest in helping young people tell the stories that are important to them. They also have a deep understanding of their own relationship to racial justice and how racism and other injustices shape the experiences of young people and the stories they want to tell. Note: Our office is located in midtown Manhattan but until further notice, we are working remotely.

Key Functions

The Part-Time Editor has duties in three main areas: developing stories with writers and shepherding their progress, supporting other editors with story development and proofing stories before they are posted, and co-teaching the Summer Writing Workshop.

Edit Student Work

• Work closely with each writer to help them identify the main theme or angle of a story they want to write and the key scenes, anecdotes and emotions that will convey their ideas.
• Work collaboratively with the writer to find the form, structure, style, and story length appropriate to the topic, the writer’s ability, and the interests of our readers.
• Edit stories, including personal essays, reported stories, and reviews, for content, clarity, fairness, and accuracy. (Note: Stories typically go through five to 10 drafts. A news story may be completed over several weeks, while an emotionally complex story may take months of reflection and revision.)
• Support and empathize with youth in crisis.

Co-teach the Summer Writing Workshop

• Co-teach and lead a six-week, themed writing intensive, together with the other editors.
• Teach a combination of writing and journalism lessons, lead group discussions, and coordinate trips surrounding the theme. Past themes have included gender, restorative justice, what it means to be American, and economic inequality.

Support Story Distribution & Production

• Copyedit and proofread stories for grammar, usage, and YC/AP style.

Candidates who have succeeded in this job in the past have had most of the following skills and background:

• Bachelor’s degree in English, journalism, anthropology, social work, or another applicable field.
• 5+ years of writing and editing experience, either reported or personal stories.
• Passion for YC’s mission and purpose (see YouthComm.org for more information).
• Comfortable applying an equity lens to all aspects of the job.
• Commitment to understanding the historical and cultural systems of inequity and oppression in which we all operate.
• Personal awareness about how their own racial identity influences how and why they do this work.

To Apply
Please email a cover letter, resume, and three relevant clips to: careers@youthcomm.org. Please no phone calls. Candidates will be contacted for interviews on a rolling basis. We are unable to respond to all applications. Candidates of color encouraged to apply.