Journalists tired of long hours glued to their keyboards might want to send out their resumes directly to Cupertino, California.
A recent job posting from Apple says that the company is seeking several “News Editors” to join the team for its upcoming News app. The hours? A cushy 40 a week.
“These editors will help News users find the best and most timely coverage of major news events, while also managing select categories based on their areas of professional expertise,” the ad reads.
The rest of the job description is pretty vague. In addition to five years of newsroom experience and a BA in journalism, Apple is looking for someone with “a strong understanding of the technology behind digital news.”
Granted, most of Apple’s job postings describe work weeks as 40 hours, even though Apple’s senior engineers reportedly toil round-the-clock, especially before product launches (paywall). There’s reason to believe that an Apple News Editor might actually clock out a bit earlier though.
Some might quiver at the thought of Apple shaking up the news industry by suddenly getting into the reporting and writing business, but there’s little evidence that Apple News is going to be anything more than a fancy news app. (Note: Quartz is an early partner, along with Vanity Fair, CNN, NPR and others)
Newsstand and iBooks, Apple’s respective apps for media and books, have remained minor players in the App Store. They’ve been eclipsed by popular alternatives like Amazon’s Kindle Reader and Flipboard. Meanwhile, a treasure trove of high-quality third-party apps help drive iPhone sales, not standalone Apple-branded apps. And iPhone sales, not content, are what drive most of Apple’s profits.
With News editors, Apple appears to be seeking curators to choose which third-party news article sits at the top of the screen, rather than an ink-stained investigative journalist.
As the job description says, editors will “surface great content from a range of high-quality publishers.” Now that sounds like it could be a 40-hour-a-week job.