The Media Center is excited to launch the search process for 2025-2026 student media senior leadership. The student media senior leadership includes:
- The Editor-in-Chief of Ablaze Magazine (academic year)
- The Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Beacon (full year)
- The Managing Editor of The Daily Beacon (full year)
- The Executive Producer of Lumos Media Services (academic year)
- The News Director of The Vol Channel (academic year)
- The Sports Director of The Vol Channel (academic year)
All positions are paid, student positions. Specific pay rates and length of appointment will be discussed during the interview process.
To apply, you must be a current student in good standing with at least one semester of service in the outlet for which they are applying. Preference will be given to students, who have served in a leadership position. Additionally, you must submit the following:
- A statement of interest explaining why you are well suited for the position and what goals you would have for strengthening the outlet
- A current resume
All application materials are due no later than 5 pm on Monday, April 21, 2025. Applications should be submitted to The Media Center Administrative Assistant Joe Robertson by emailing [email protected].
Once applications have been received and reviewed by the evaluation committee, finalists for the position will be asked to interview in front of the committee during the week of April 21 or April 28. Interview timeslots will be assigned at a later date.
If you have any questions, please contact The Media Center director Professor Nick Geidner by emailing [email protected].
Ablaze
Editor-in-Chief
The editor-in-chief (EIC) is the lead figure of the magazine and is responsible for overseeing all editorial, creative, and operational aspects of the publication. The editor-in-chief is responsible for leading all four editorial departments during weekly editor meetings and full staff meetings. They set the vision, ensure content quality, manage the editorial team, and uphold the magazine’s mission and standards.
Responsibilities and duties:
- Editorial leadership – Set the magazine’s vision, oversee content selection, and ensure quality and consistency.
- Team management – Lead, mentor, and coordinate the editorial team, assigning roles and facilitating meetings.
- Content Oversight – Approve final drafts, maintain a content calendar, and ensure deadlines are met.
- Operations and logistics – Manage production workflows, coordinate with printers, and oversee the budget.
- Outreach and engagement – Represent the magazine, foster relationships, and promote content across platforms.
- Growth and legacy planning – Develop strategies for expanding readership and ensuring smooth team transitions.
Daily Beacon
Editor-in-Chief
The Daily Beacon editor-in-chief oversees and directs the student news staff of the digital-first newsroom in producing a regularly updated website, in producing a printed newspaper during the fall and spring semesters, and in producing special issues such as On Rocky Top magazine.
Specific Duties & Responsibilities
- The editor makes final decisions about acceptability of editorial content.
- The editor selects section editors and hires (or delegates the hiring of) reporters, photographers, videographers, copy editors, graphic & web designers and any others involved in producing the news and editorial content of the digital-first newsroom. In doing so, the editor (and others delegated to hire) should assure that an Equal Employment Opportunity philosophy is followed.
- The editor establishes and communicates to their staff a news content plan that fully involves covering all aspect of UT’s campus community.
- The editor enforces newsroom production deadlines as necessary for each issue to meet a final deadline of 9 pm delivery of finished pages to the printer and ensure a timely posting of the newspaper content online.
- The editor determines guidelines to manage the newsroom’s operations.
- The editor instructs, trains, offers advice and provides critiques to staff.
- The editor, upon invitation, consults with the student advertising manager concerning matters of taste and legalities in advertising material. Additionally, the editor and advertising manager will confer about special issues to coordinate sales efforts that align with editorial material.
- The editor handles questions, suggestions and complaints from the public.
Managing Editor
The managing editor is responsible for managing and supervising the Daily Beacon’s staff members and administering the day-to-day operations of the newsroom. The managing editor must ensure they understand each editorial position in the case that they need to assume this role, and to work closely with each editor in order to be aware of what occurs in the newsroom as a whole and in each editorial section. The managing editor also assists the editor-in-chief with daily tasks in order to step in when they are needed. The managing editor must always be on time and enforce deadlines.
Specific Duties & Responsibilities
- The managing editor supervises the day-to-day operations of the publication and reports to the editor-in-chief.
- The managing editor is primarily responsible for hiring and overseeing section and assistant editors and handles internal staff disputes.
- The managing editor will hold at least four brief strategic meetings during the school week with the editorial team to keep staff on schedule and to promote collaboration between staff members.
- The managing editor tracks payments for editors, as well as pay for stories, videos and photographs for staff members and submits this information to The Media Center administrative assistant at the end of each month.
- The managing editor ensures that the newspaper is on schedule and enforces policies and procedures. Revisions are made as necessary.
- The managing editor is responsible for coordinating The Daily Beacon’s participation in any special events that may come up. The managing editor will then work with administrative personnel to obtain approval.
- The managing editor assists the editor-in-chief in handling questions, suggestions and complaints from the public.
Lumos
Executive Producer
The executive producer works with the Lumos advisor to ensure the production staff of Lumos Media maintains a consistent and manageable workload, and clients are satisfied with the work the team produces. They lead weekly staff meeting to discuss the status of current and future projects. They are responsible for keeping projects on track and able to hit their due date, assigning student volunteers to tasks based on their level of experience and completing a quality control pass on deliverables before they are sent to clients. The executive producer must also be familiar with every step in the production pipeline, so they are able to train new volunteers for any task or fill in whenever needed.
TVC
News Director
The news director is the lead figure for The Volunteer Channel and is responsible for overseeing all editorial, creative, and operational aspects of the outlet. Other responsibilities include:
- Communicate with TVC advisor, staff, and students
- Represent TVC to Journalism and Media, Cinema Studies, and all other departments
- Maintain the TVC budget, in coordination with the TVC Advisor, and approve and oversee budget for programming
- Work with The Media Center staff to ensure all student payroll for TVC is submitted on time and in a complete manner
- Enforce guidelines and expectations
- Respond to station needs in a timely manner
- Act a liaison between TVC and other on-campus and off-campus organizations
- Function as president of TVC as required by CSE
- Watch TVC programming and ensure station is operating correctly
- Create each semester’s production schedule in conjunction with show executive producers
- Perform any other duties as assigned
Sports Director
The sports director manages all sports coverage for The Volunteer Channel. Other responsibilities include:
- Manage all sport coverage by TVC
- Act as liaison for TVC reporters and commentators to sports PIOs
- Determine and organize personnel attending games, including ensuring an understanding of procedure and gear, and handling press passes
- Decide what games and events TVC will attend and in what capacity
- Work with Media Center staff to make travel requests and coordinate all sports travel for TVC
- Coordinate sports segment on TVC News
- Double check sports scripts, ensure content is suitable for programming
- Attend weekly editorial meetings
- Attend scheduled leadership meetings