Audience Engagement Editor

Overview

Job Title: Audience Engagement Editor

Department: Editorial

Reports To: Director of Audience & Research

FLSA Status: Exempt

Job Band: 6

Location: Washington, DC | Hybrid

Schedule: Full-Time

Who We Are

Radio Free Asia (RFA) is a private, nonprofit 501(c)(3) media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with editorial and operational bureaus in Taipei, Bangkok, and Seoul. A congressionally funded grantee of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), RFA operates with full editorial independence.

Our mission is to provide accurate, uncensored news and information to people living in countries where a free press does not exist. We broadcast in nine languages and dialects — Mandarin, Cantonese, Tibetan, Uyghur, Burmese, Vietnamese, Lao, Khmer, and Korean — reaching audiences across China, North Korea, Vietnam, Burma, Cambodia, Laos and beyond via shortwave, satellite, and the internet. Our journalists work in some of the world’s most difficult media environments, often at considerable personal risk, filling a critical gap in access to truthful, timely news for millions of people who would otherwise have very little of it. That reality shapes everything about how we work and who we hire to lead this organization.

Job Summary

Reaching RFA's audiences is harder than at any point in recent memory. Authoritarian governments block RFA's domains, throttle its content on social platforms, demote it in search, and flood the same information spaces with state-aligned messaging. The Audience Engagement Editor treats reach as a core editorial function — connecting RFA's journalism to audiences inside contested information environments, not simply measuring what happened after publication.

This is an editorial role, not a marketing role. It sits at the intersection of journalism, analytics, and distribution — and requires the judgment to know when audience optimization serves the mission and when it compromises it.

Responsibilities

• Own day-to-day distribution across web, social, newsletters, and push notifications. Work with Innovation , Tech Op and the language desks on shortwave and circumvention channels. Treat each channel as a separate audience with its own behavior and limits.
• Optimize headlines, packaging, and formats for search and AI answer engines (SEO and AEO) in markets where conventional analytics and platforms are contested or unreliable.
• Adapt and edit desk reporting into platform-native formats (article, vertical video, social, audio) without compromising accuracy.
• Lead audience strategy during breaking news and major coverage events, coordinating distribution timing, format, and platform sequencing across desks in real time.
• Partner with desks to identify audience interest, surface underreported topics, and find relevant angles, including ways audiences can safely contribute to and engage with RFA’s journalism.
• Develop, test, and iterate on distribution tactics, including headline variants, push timing, format experiments, and circumvention channel deployment, using structured testing where platforms and environments allow.
• Use daily analytics and the Director of Audience and Research’s findings to advise desks on stories, formats, and timing. Be clear about the limits of measurement in blocked and surveilled environments.
• Monitor platform policy, algorithmic changes, and state-directed interference patterns that affect RFA's reach, and escalate significant changes to the Managing Editor and TechOps.
• Build and deliver training that embeds audience thinking into desk workflows, from story selection and headline writing to format choices and source safety, so audience engagement becomes a newsroom-wide practice.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Journalism, Communications, Political Science, International Relations, or a related field required
• Minimum of 7 years in digital journalism, newsroom audience development, or editorial distribution, or a similar newsroom role, with demonstrated ownership of multi-channel distribution (web, social, newsletters, push).
• Strong news judgement and the ability to adapt journalism for platform-native formats
• Working proficiency in SEO and AEO principles, including headline optimization, structured data, and content discoverability in AI-assisted search environments
• Fluency with analytics tools and the ability to interpret audience analytics data critically, including understanding what data is missing or misleading in restricted-access markets
• Strong editing and packaging skills across formats and platforms.
• High comfort level with webCMS platforms, social scheduling and analytics tools, and newsletter platforms
• Demonstrated Experience with A/B testing, push notification strategy, and newsletter optimization
• Excellent writing ability, skilled in translating data insights into plain-language editorial recommendations for non-technical colleagues
• Proven ability to work with reporters, editors, technologists, and researchers, and to influence colleagues who don’t report to you.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience reaching news audiences in censored, throttled, or firewalled information environments, such as China, and other authoritative countries
• Experience with circumvention tools and alternative distribution channels (mirror sites, app distribution, peer-to-peer) in the context of blocked or throttled media
• Working knowledge of one or more RFA languages (Mandarin, Cantonese, Tibetan, Uyghur, Burmese, Khmer, Vietnamese, Lao, or Korean)
• Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively across multilingual, multicultural teams.
• Experience building and delivering workshops, guides, or onboarding that change newsroom habits

Physical Requirements / Working Conditions

This is a full-time, exempt position based in Washington, DC. Some flexibility in work hours required to accommodate international time zones. The role follows a hybrid schedule, with 3 days in office and 2 days in remote.

Salary Range: $87,500-118,500/Year. Final salary is commensurate with experiences and skills that are compatible with the requirements of the role.

This position is ineligible for sponsorship by the company for any work authorization, applicant must possess existing work authorization to be considered for the position.

Application Instructions: Please submit a cover letter along with your application.