Explore jobs
Find specific jobs
Explore careers
Explore professions
Best companies
Explore companies
News director hiring summary. Here are some key points about hiring news directors in the United States:
Here's a step-by-step news director hiring guide:
Before you start hiring a news director, identify what type of worker you actually need. Certain positions might call for a full-time employee, while others can be done by a part-time worker or contractor.
You should also consider the ideal background you'd like them a news director to have before you start to hire. For example, what industry or field would you like them to have experience in, what level of seniority or education does the job require, and how much it'll cost to hire a news director that fits the bill.
This list shows salaries for various types of news directors.
| Type of News Director | Description | Hourly rate |
|---|---|---|
| News Director | Producers and directors create motion pictures, television shows, live theater, commercials, and other performing arts productions. They interpret a writer’s script to entertain or inform an audience. | $17-43 |
| Program Supervisor | A program supervisor is a professional who coordinates and monitors the scheduling and technical performance of company programs. Program supervisors aid in negotiating contracts and are responsible for any contractual changes... Show more | $17-25 |
| Director Of After School Program | A director of after school programs oversees and directs childcare centers in communities. They take the lead in setting goals and guidelines, conducting research and analyses to identify the students' interests and needs, developing programs that provide recreational activities and academic support, supervising the recruitment and training of employees, and monitoring the daily operations to ensure everything runs smoothly and efficiently... Show more | $14-38 |
Including a salary range in your news director job description helps attract top candidates to the position. A news director salary can be affected by several factors, such as geography, experience, seniority, certifications, and the prestige of the hiring company.
For example, the average salary for a news director in Nebraska may be lower than in New York, and an entry-level news director usually earns less than a senior-level news director. Additionally, a news director with certifications may command a higher salary, and working for a well-known company or start-up may also impact an employee's pay.
| Rank | State | Avg. salary | Hourly rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New York | $100,853 | $48 |
| 2 | California | $74,366 | $36 |
| 3 | District of Columbia | $67,413 | $32 |
| 4 | Washington | $65,485 | $31 |
| 5 | Nevada | $61,869 | $30 |
| 6 | Georgia | $59,020 | $28 |
| 7 | Alaska | $58,739 | $28 |
| 8 | Michigan | $54,796 | $26 |
| 9 | Texas | $54,621 | $26 |
| 10 | Florida | $52,619 | $25 |
| 11 | Utah | $50,483 | $24 |
| 12 | Tennessee | $49,292 | $24 |
| 13 | Virginia | $47,103 | $23 |
| 14 | Indiana | $47,095 | $23 |
| 15 | Colorado | $46,632 | $22 |
| 16 | Hawaii | $45,627 | $22 |
| 17 | Iowa | $43,220 | $21 |
| 18 | Nebraska | $42,711 | $21 |
| Rank | Company | Average salary | Hourly rate | Job openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Washington Post | $103,520 | $49.77 | |
| 2 | Fox News | $79,309 | $38.13 | |
| 3 | Sinclair Broadcast Group | $77,834 | $37.42 | 98 |
| 4 | Nexstar Media Group | $69,236 | $33.29 | 102 |
| 5 | The E.W. Scripps Company | $66,441 | $31.94 | 11 |
| 6 | Gray Television | $63,473 | $30.52 | 97 |
| 7 | Paramount | $59,127 | $28.43 | 15 |
| 8 | WMSN FOX 47 News, Madison | $58,806 | $28.27 | 53 |
| 9 | Outside In | $58,537 | $28.14 | |
| 10 | Townsquare Media | $58,151 | $27.96 | 1 |
| 11 | Syracuse University | $57,733 | $27.76 | 2 |
| 12 | KERA | $56,812 | $27.31 | |
| 13 | TEGNA | $56,121 | $26.98 | 18 |
| 14 | ViacomCBS | $55,153 | $26.52 | |
| 15 | Sdsu Foundation | $54,013 | $25.97 | |
| 16 | University of Nebraska System | $51,859 | $24.93 | |
| 17 | Livingston | $49,262 | $23.68 | |
| 18 | VICE | $49,245 | $23.68 | |
| 19 | BuzzFeed | $48,330 | $23.24 | |
| 20 | Corporation for Public Broadcasting | $46,210 | $22.22 |
A job description for a news director role includes a summary of the job's main responsibilities, required skills, and preferred background experience. Including a salary range can also go a long way in attracting more candidates to apply, and showing the first name of the hiring manager can also make applicants more comfortable. As an example, here's a news director job description:
There are various strategies that you can use to find the right news director for your business:
To successfully recruit news directors, your first interview needs to engage with candidates to learn about their interest in the role and experience in the field. You can go into more detail about the company, the role, and the responsibilities during follow-up interviews.
It's also good to ask about candidates' unique skills and talents. You can move on to the technical interview if a candidate is good enough for the next step.
The right interview questions can help you assess a candidate's hard skills, behavioral intelligence, and soft skills.
Once you have selected a candidate for the news director position, it is time to create an offer letter. In addition to salary, the offer letter should include details about benefits and perks that are available to the employee. Ensuring your offer is competitive is vital, as qualified candidates may be considering other job opportunities. The candidate may wish to negotiate the terms of the offer, and it is important to be open to discussion and reach a mutually beneficial agreement. After the offer has been accepted, it is a good idea to formalize the agreement with a contract.
It's equally important to follow up with applicants who don't get the job with an email letting them know that the position has been filled.
Once that's done, you can draft an onboarding schedule for the new news director. Human Resources should complete Employee Action Forms and ensure that onboarding paperwork is completed, including I-9s, benefits enrollment, federal and state tax forms, etc. They should also ensure that new employee files are created for internal recordkeeping.
Before you start to hire news directors, it pays to consider both the one-off costs like recruitment, job promotion, and onboarding, as well as the ongoing costs of an employee's salary and benefits. While most companies that hire news directors pay close attention to the initial cost of hiring, ongoing costs are much more significant in the long run.
You can expect to pay around $57,534 per year for a news director, as this is the median yearly salary nationally. This can vary depending on what state or city you're hiring in. If you're hiring for contract work or on a per-project basis, hourly rates for news directors in the US typically range between $17 and $43 an hour.