Sports Editor, Chron

This is a Full Time Job

Sports Editor, Chron

Chron is looking for a Sports Editor who's focused on what Houston fans care about most-both on the field and off. The ideal candidate will create unique coverage that drives cultural conversations surrounding Houston's and Texas' teams, athletes, and events and speak with an authoritative Texas perspective about American sports culture. We count on our sports editor to know what fans want and understand what people will be talking about tomorrow. They'll be expected to write or assign everything from quick articles about games, trades, or disputes taking place on social media to longer form, thoughtfully reported features to evergreen stories about the Texas sports landscape and its history. We're also looking for someone who can help Chron leadership strategize about the direction of sports coverage and the future of the site. Chron's Sports Editor should have a strong background in writing and reporting features, but be able to type and publish stories quickly when the news calls for it, edit well, and ideally come with and continue to build a roster of freelancers who can fill out our daily coverage.

Primary Responsibilities:
• Excellent news judgement and feature writing skills
• Excellent reporting, researching, and interviewing skills
• Strong copy-editing skills and knowledge of AP Style
• Familiarity with the needs of the Houston and Texas audience
• Familiarity with national digital media landscape
• Familiarity with content management systems

Competencies/Critical Skills:
• Find unique angles on sports coverage, craft features and franchises that draw national attention
• Quickly cover newsworthy moments as they happen to capitalize on social and search traffic
• Juggle responsibilities, including reporting, writing, editing topic pages and posting on social media
• Balance daily, weekly, and longer-lead deadlines, working off hours when necessary

Describe the most challenging aspect of this position:
• Redeveloping Chron's daily coverage of sports, finding new stories and unique ideas
• Crafting features, franchises, and projects that are exciting to readers inside and outside of Texas
• Covering a variety of sports, from the Astros and Texans to high school football and World Cup 2026

What type of decisions does this position refer to others for approval?
• Long-term editorial strategy and priorities
• Development of long form features, franchises, and projects

Measures of success for this position include:
• Overall traffic performance in aims of meeting daily and monthly goals
• Strategically deploying writers and widening Chron's sports audience and appetite
• Creating an editorial calendar, marking specific dates and events to strategize coverage
• Meeting deadlines and keeping pace with publishing schedule while improving work quality
• Mentions, links, shares, and pickups of stories from prominent third-party publications
• Reader shares and other engagement with stories on social media platforms
• Overall increase of unique in-DMA visitors and loyal in-DMA visitors

Experience, qualifications, technical requirements, education:
• Bachelor's degree in journalism, communications or English
• At least eight years of experience in reporting and editing, including five years in sports
• Preferred knowledge of Houston's teams and players, personalities, and popular culture
• Preferred experience using Chartbeat, Google Analytics, Looker, or other analytics tools
• Experience working in a CMS and publishing to digital platforms preferred
• Chron is an essential digital-first local news source serving more than 6 million unique readers a month in Houston and the surrounding region, including Galveston and the Gulf Coast. Once the digital home for the Houston Chronicle, Chron became its own distinctive site and newsroom in 2012, when HoustonChronicle.com launched. Focusing on stories that capture local culture and spark conversation, Chron covers trending sports, food and entertainment, travel, local TV personalities, real estate, space and more. Chron.com has become the go-to destination for metro and regional readers who are curious about what's new in Houston and what's affecting culture and life in the Bayou City.

About Hearst Newspapers:

With 2,500 employees across the nation, HNP encompasses a network of 24 daily and 52 weekly publications, including the San Francisco Chronicle, Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Express-News and Albany Times Union, several top digital-only news and lifestyle sites, marketing services businesses, and entertainment businesses such as King Features Syndicate.

At HNP, we are investing in new and innovative ways to tell stories – growing newsrooms, diversifying tools, evolving platforms – to support the millions of people who trust us each month to help them make decisions, take action and be inspired.

Be a part of something bigger – your headline awaits.

Recognizing the diverse needs of our candidates, if you are interested in applying for employment and need assistance or an accommodation to use our website or regarding the application process, please contact us by email at hnpemployment@hearst.com. Please do not use this email address to inquire about the status of applications. We will only respond to inquiries concerning requests for a reasonable accommodation through this email address.

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