Creative Lead

Position Summary

HonestReporting is a leading information watchdog organization dedicated to exposing bias and inaccuracy in coverage of Israel across news media, social media, and AI platforms. We hold journalists, influencers, outlets, and platforms accountable — and we do it with rigor, credibility, and impact. Our growing social media department produces content that reaches millions of people, and we’re looking for a talented Creative Lead to help us do it even better.

HonestReporting is looking for a Creative Lead. This is a maker's role: you will brainstorm and build alongside the team, and you will create the workflows and systems that help everyone produce better, more compelling content. We need someone with the vision to shape how we educate audiences about Israel and the creative instincts to make content people actually want to engage with.

Essential Job Function

Own the creative point of view: Set and defend a distinctive visual and editorial style that makes HonestReporting recognizable mid-scroll. Build consistency without becoming formulaic, and evolve the creative identity as platforms, formats, and audience behaviors change.
Invent formats, not just posts: Develop recurring visual franchises, content series, storytelling structures, and motion signatures that audiences come to recognize and expect. Know when to invest in a format, when to reinvent it, and when to kill it because it has stopped working.
Lead the work personally: Concept, storyboard, and build hands-on when the moment calls for it. This is a maker's role, not an approver's role.
Run creative critique: Establish regular, rigorous creative reviews where work gets pulled apart, challenged, and rebuilt. Give direct, specific, useful feedback. Help content creators and video editors understand not only what should change, but why. Raise the creative ceiling of the entire team while creating a culture where ambitious ideas and constructive criticism are expected.
Make hard material watchable: Media bias analysis and investigations can be dense by nature. Find the visual, editorial, and narrative hooks that make complex material understandable and compelling to a general audience without flattening the substance or overstating the finding. Turn information into stories people want to finish.
Own the creative response to breaking news: When a story breaks, make creative decisions in minutes rather than days. Determine the right visual response, format, and treatment while protecting accuracy and editorial integrity. More importantly, prepare before the news breaks by building the templates, asset libraries, creative systems, and pre-cleared formats that allow the team to move quickly when it matters.
Read performance like a creative: Use performance data to make the work better, not simply to report on it. Understand hook rate, retention curves, replays, saves, shares, and other platform signals, and combine those metrics with strong creative judgment. Know which signals are telling you something important, which are noise, and when the right creative decision may run against the obvious metric. Turn those lessons into the team's next round of creative decisions.
Look outside the sector: Don't limit inspiration to advocacy organizations or news media. Pay attention to what is working across platforms, including creators, brands, entertainment, publishers, and mainstream newsrooms. Identify emerging visual languages, editing conventions, storytelling devices, and formats early, then determine what HonestReporting can adapt and make its own rather than simply copying a trend.
Push the toolset: Work with HonestReporting's AI Labs so the listening tool surfaces what the creative team actually needs to create informative content.
Partner with the department manager: Facilitate the team's workflow and assignments, and cover the department when she is unavailable.

Qualifications

Bachelors degree in related field.
Minimum of 7 years in a creative role with 3 plus years in a lead role.
Must be able to travel to Israel once a year and possibly within the US for team meetings (travel: 5%-10%)
Significant hands-on experience creating digital and social-first content.
Strong instincts around visual storytelling, motion, editing, pacing, typography, composition, and platform-native creative.
The ability to turn complicated editorial material into clear, compelling visual narratives.
Experience giving substantive creative direction and feedback to designers, editors, creators, or multidisciplinary teams.
The ability to move between creative direction and execution with hands-on production as needed.
Excellent editorial judgment, particularly when working with sensitive, developing, or breaking stories.
Comfort experimenting with AI-enabled creative workflows and collaborating with technical teams.
The ability to work quickly, make decisions with imperfect information, and stay calm when the news cycle accelerates.

Physical Demands

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Prolonged periods of sitting while working at a computer and reviewing or creating digital content.
Frequent use of hands and fingers to operate a computer keyboard, mouse, camera equipment, and other office or production tools.
Frequent visual focus and close vision required for reading, editing, proofreading, and reviewing digital and printed materials.
Ability to communicate effectively in person, by phone, and through virtual meeting platforms.Ability to travel occasionally to production locations, meetings, or events, as business needs require.
May be required to transport or set up basic production equipment, such as cameras, tripods, lighting, microphones, or laptops.
Occasionally required to stand, walk, bend, reach, and lift or move materials and equipment weighing up to 20 pounds.

Work Environment

The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job.

This position is primarily performed in a remote work environment.
The employee will regularly use computers, monitors, telephones, cameras, editing software, and other standard office and multimedia production equipment.
The work environment is generally quiet to moderate in noise levels but may occasionally involve higher noise levels during on-location productions, live events, or studio recordings.
The position may require occasional travel to production sites, meetings, community events, or other business locations.
Field production assignments may involve working indoors and outdoors in varying weather conditions, lighting environments, and terrain.
The position may require flexibility to work evenings, weekends, or extended hours to support production schedules, special events, or deadline-driven projects.
The employee may be required to work under time constraints, manage multiple priorities, and adapt to changing production schedules while maintaining attention to detail and quality standards.