New editor sought for Acton's largest local media

ActonW3.com is currently looking for a new editor for the site. It represents a chance to run the largest local media in the area and reach thousands of people every week.

The previous editor, Michelle Smith, has emigrated to the United States. We were very disappointed to lose her but she decided California was a more appealing prospect than Acton.

ActonW3.com gets cover 10,000 unique visitors a month and there are now over 2500 people receiving the free e-mail newsletter. The ideal candidate is likely to have lived in the W3 area for at least 5 years.

Technical skills are not an issue. Training and support will be provided. More important is a good standard of written English and access to a broadband connection. It would be helpful if you owned a digital camera. The editor is likely to be someone who is already active in the local community and has an interest in a broad range of local matters.

You would be joining a team of local news editors. You would work closely with Annemarie Flanagan who runs the www.ealingtoday.co.uk site and the other editors in the group. They will supply you with some stories relevant to the Acton area and you will get a steady supply of information from a range of local sources including the Council and the Police. You would be expected to edit and prepare these for publication as well as produce original articles based on your own research.

The editor gets a share of the revenue of the site. The site has been growing rapidly over the last year and revenues have risen accordingly. If the new editor can maintain that trend they will benefit accordingly.

It would be the editor's primary responsibility to keep the site up to date and publish new articles every week but if they are able to bring in more advertising revenue from local businesses that would be a bonus. The site receives no grant funding and is entirely dependent on its advertising customers for continued operation.

The job would not be full time but the editor would need to be in a position to react quickly to breaking news stories in the area so it may be impractical to combine the role with other regular work.

The site is published by Neighbour Net which is the largest independent publisher of online local news in the UK. Over 34,000 people are registered on sites in the group and it is believed that ChiswickW4.com is the largest in the UK in terms of traffic, revenue and membership. The company has been established for over eleven years.

The charter of the site stipulates that it should be a platform for a spectrum of views on the local area and therefore the editor should avoid, as far as possible, expressing his or her opinion or presenting the news in way that is biased towards one point of view. We will accept applications from members of political parties but would expect that they did not allow their views to compromise the objective presentation of news on the site.

Anyone interested in the position should contact info@neighbournet.com. Send a short description of your background, skills and interests as well as an explanation of how you would run the site and what your aims would be. If this seems like a good fit you will be invited in for a more detailed chat.

September 8, 2011