Copy Editor at Code for Africa (CfA)

About the Role:

The successful candidate will be part of CfA’s Engagement team, responsible for managing our public audience, curating platforms, communications, and brand. The team strives to enhance CfA’s reputation and amplify thought leadership through compelling multimedia storytelling.

You will work primarily with the Engagement team and, from time to time, with other CfA teams and/or partners to create compelling content on our projects. Your main responsibility will be editing content from various sources, ensuring technical accuracy, adherence to our style and voice, and meeting the needs of our team and partners in the development and civic technology sectors. The content will be published on CfA’s platforms and syndicated with media partners.

We expect you to have strong news judgement and a comprehensive understanding of different writing styles and topics relevant to a leading civic technology organisation. You will work alongside a team of editorial experts, including copywriters, researchers, writers, data analysts, designers, and social media strategists.

Responsibilities: Your daily responsibilities will include:

• Copy/sub-edit (i.e., correcting format, grammar, syntax, spelling, and style) all content.
• Verify facts and statistics using reputable reference sources.
• Proofread and revise content for logical flow, clarity, consistency and conciseness. 
• Ensure that documents are well structured and well formatted.  
• Guide other members of staff on how to improve their rough drafts to reduce editing further down the line.
• Help in developing our in-house style guide and ensuring content adheres to the guide.

Required: minimum requirements include:

• Minimum of 5 years of copy-editing experience in a fast-paced newsroom or the digital journalism space.
• Excellent knowledge of grammar and proper compositional practices, to aid in rewriting and proofreading often complex copy.
• Excellent explanatory writing and editing skills, with a strong command of English. 
• Rigorous research skills, an obsessive commitment to accuracy, and attention to detail to verify information on diverse topics. 
• The ability to work fast, creatively, and accurately under pressure to deliver content that is credible, consistent and always factually correct.
• Excellent knowledge of current affairs, particularly in the civic-tech space, coupled with critical-thinking skills.
• Strong organisational and decision-making skills.
• Experience developing style guides and training inhouse teams on how to apply it to their work
• The ability to communicate and work effectively with multicultural – and multilingual – writers, editors, designers, illustrators, video producers and project team members who work remotely and in different time zones.
• Proficiency in adapting writing styles to cater for various audiences, channels, and formats.
• Demonstrable ability to improve the meaning and clarity of copy through correct grammar, consistency of voice, tone and terminology, factual accuracy, logical sentence and document structure, and readability of the final product.
• Track record of copy editing various content types, such as blogs, social media content, investigative reports, and presentations.
• The ability to work creatively and in a remote fast-paced deadline-driven environment to deliver content that is credible, consistent and always factually correct. 
• Effective communicative and collaborative skills with multicultural writers, editors, and project team members who work remotely and in different time zones.

Preferred: candidates who are able to demonstrate the following will have an advantage:

• A keen understanding of how to integrate data into compelling storytelling.
• Experience in transforming traditional journalism into visual storytelling, including how to most effectively integrate social video and/or infographics.
• Experience in using digital collaboration tools, including Slack, Google Drive, and Trello to manage editorial workflows.

Language and Location Requirements:

• Location: Remote
• Languages: English
• Preferred but not required: Arabic, French, Swahili, or other major African languages.