Managing Editor

Full-time | Remote | January 2027

Minority Africa is looking for a Managing Editor to lead our day-to-day editorial operations and help shape the next chapter of our journalism.

We’re looking for someone who loves a good story, reads widely, and is endlessly curious about the world. You follow the news, but you’re rarely satisfied with simply knowing what happened. You want to know what came before it, what it means, what it connects to, and what everyone else might be missing.

We publish deeply reported features, investigations, and explanatory journalism about communities across Africa that are often overlooked or misrepresented. We also cover breaking and developing news on social media, but we are not primarily a breaking-news newsroom. We’re interested in what we can add, whether that be context, explanation, a surprising connection, or a way of seeing a familiar story differently.

What you’ll do

As Managing Editor, you’ll:

• Lead Minority Africa’s day-to-day editorial operations and publishing calendar.
• Commission and edit features, investigations, explainers, and social-first journalism from reporters across Africa.
• Work with reporters from pitch to publication, helping identify the strongest angle, reporting gaps, narrative structure, and stakes.
• Work with our Associate Editor to identify and develop timely stories, including breaking and developing news for our social platforms.
• Work with and mentor fellows in Minority Africa’s reporting Lab as they develop ambitious journalism projects.
• Manage contributors, deadlines, freelance budgets, and editorial workflows while maintaining our editorial and ethical standards.
• Work across editorial, visuals, and audience to determine the best way to tell a story.
• Work closely with the Executive Editor to shape Minority Africa’s broader editorial direction and experiment with new formats and approaches to storytelling.

What your week might look like

Beginning in January 2027, Minority Africa will publish one original feature on our website each week, alongside shorter-form content published daily on social media. You’ll work with our network of reporters, freelancers, and fellows to make that happen: commissioning and editing our weekly web feature; planning breaking news, explainers, videos, and other social-first formats; and bringing it all together into a clear editorial calendar.

You’ll probably enjoy this role if…

You read. A lot. We mean it, you have to read a lot. If you love the narrative ambition of The New York Times’ Great Read, the curiosity of WIRED, or journalism like The Marshall Project that can take a complicated subject and make you see it differently, you’ll probably understand what we’re trying to build.

You notice patterns and think beyond national borders. A development in one country reminds you of something you read six months ago somewhere else. A pitch about one community makes you wonder whether the same thing is happening across a border. You understand that something can be major breaking news in one country without necessarily being the story Minority Africa should tell to audiences across the continent and beyond. You know what belongs in a newsletter, what deserves a social explainer, and what might contain the beginnings of a deeply reported feature.

Why people should care is immediately clear to you. You can find the stakes, tension, and contradictions that make a story matter. You ask: Why this story? Why this person? Why now? What’s surprising here? And you can answer those questions without manufacturing drama or sensationalising the people at the centre of the story.

You care about narrative. You can help a reporter move from “this is an important issue” to “this is a story someone will actually want to read.” You understand character, structure, tension, and contradiction.

You make complicated things understandable without making them simplistic. You can look at a confusing policy, court decision, cultural shift, or developing story and figure out what someone actually needs to know and the clearest, most compelling way to tell them.

Above all, you’re curious. You read outside your beat and outside your country, you ask why, you make connections. Once or twice a week, you occasionally send someone an article with a message that says, “This made me think of…”

That’s a big part of the job.

What we’re looking for

You should have:

• Significant experience reporting, editing, or commissioning journalism.
• A track record of producing or helping produce ambitious, accurate, and compelling stories.
• Experience managing journalists, contributors, or editorial workflows.
• Experience with or a strong understanding of journalism about social justice, inequality, and marginalised communities.
• Strong editorial judgment and excellent writing and editing skills.
• A strong understanding of journalism and current affairs across Africa, alongside an interest in what is happening beyond the continent.
• An understanding of digital journalism and how stories can work differently across the web and social platforms.

We care about experience, but we’re not looking for one particular career path. You might already be a Managing Editor, or you might be a features editor, commissioning editor, deputy editor, or senior reporter who has increasingly found yourself shaping other people’s journalism.

What matters most is whether you can do the work.

Remuneration

The Managing Editor role pays US$6,000 per year (US$500 per month). This salary is fixed for the full two-year contract. The role comes with leave and benefits set out in our employment contract.

Who we are

Minority Africa is a digital publication that uses data-driven multimedia journalism to tell minority stories from across Africa. We work with a distributed team and a network of freelancers across Nigeria, Uganda, Mauritius, Botswana, and South Africa. Alongside our journalism, we run training and a growing body of work that supports independent storytellers on the continent. You can read more on our About page.

Application

To apply, please submit your application through our application form here. Applications close on 8 November 2026 at 23:00 UTC. We review applications on a rolling basis and encourage you to apply early. The successful candidate is expected to start in January 2027.

Our hiring for the Managing Editor role runs in four stages:

1. Written application. Your CV, your answers to the application questions, and links to three to five published pieces you have written, edited, or significantly helped shape. You may also include a portfolio or personal website if you have one.

2. Shortlisting and a short task. Shortlisted candidates complete a short assignment that reflects the real work of the role.

3. Interview. A conversation with the hiring team about your experience, the task, and how you work.

4. References and offer. We speak with your referees, confirm details, and make an offer.

We are an equal-opportunity employer and we especially encourage people from minority and underrepresented communities to apply. If you need any accommodation at any point in the process, let us know in your application or by replying to the email you receive from us, and we will work with you.

Please direct all inquiries about this position to our team at operations@minorityafrica.org.