A financial editor is the person in charge of the financial section of a newspaper. He or she may also be known as a section editor or desk editor, which indicates that he or she is in charge of a specific section of the newspaper but reports to the managing editor of the entire publication. A financial editor is in charge of all content in the paper’s financial section, which includes assigning articles to reporters and editing them once they’ve been submitted, among other things.
The managing editor, as well as the other section editors, will need to meet with the financial editor on a regular basis to discuss the newspaper and the type of content that should be included. He or she will then take those ideas and assign articles to the various financial reporters at the newspaper; reporters may also be responsible for coming up with their own ideas and submitting them to the financial editor for approval. There will be a mix of hard news and soft news in the articles.
Hard news, for example, is current events in the financial world, whereas soft news is more human interest stories, such as utility bill savings tips. The financial editor will have to decide which of these articles will be included in each edition of the newspaper; hard news stories will usually take precedence over human interest stories. It’s critical that the newspaper’s financial section remains informative while also piqueing the reader’s interest.
The financial editor checks each article before it is published in the newspaper to ensure there are no stylistic or grammatical errors. A copy editor may also work on the article, checking for things like punctuation and creating interesting headlines. The reporter who writes the article is usually responsible for fact-checking, but this varies depending on the size of the newspaper.
A four-year college degree in journalism or communications, and often a dual degree in a business or financial field, is required to work as a financial editor. Some may even have prior work experience in the financial sector. He or she will typically begin working for a newspaper in an entry-level position such as copy editing, progressing to reporter or staff writer, and finally to editor.