How to staff a membership newsroom — skills needed, job descriptions, roles
Membership newsrooms require skills you probably don’t have in place. Here’s a hiring guide from Membership Puzzle Project.
Takeaways
Understand the complexity of roles — these aren’t taught in j-schools
Figure out your hiring sequence — what do you need to get moving quickly? Check out what Daily Maverick’s hiring journey in the presentation deck
If you don’t already have these skills, could you grow them within the organization? “You might need new meetings, not new people.”
Learn to use this framework to help you simplify the process: Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Supporting, Informed
Context
The Membership Puzzle Project is perhaps this industry’s most valuable resource in the membership space. It’s pulled together case studies from a diverse set of global newsrooms so that the rest of us will have constructive examples to learn from.
If you’re moving into memberships, you’ll need to staff up a newsroom with skills, job descriptions, and roles that go beyond regular “journalism” jobs.
Ariel runs the Membership in News Fund at the Membership Puzzle Project. She was joined by Jessica (previously of De Correspondent), one of the researchers at MPP.
Core skills needed in a membership newsroom
Engagement: Community management, newsletter strategy, social media strategy
Revenue, marketing and sales: Growth strategy, digital marketing, e-commerce management & customer service
Research, data, and analytics: Analytics/metric measurement, product development and testing
Editorial: Excellent written communication, effective external communication, effective internal communication
