Checkpoint Editor

Media Trust Limited is the publisher of Daily Trust and other newspaper titles. They are also into commercial printing as well as Brand Marketing Research for the purpose of identifying new opportunities for business values. Each market research report delivers insight across a wide range of crucial factors such as market size, growth drivers, competitive landscape, trends, and forecasts. We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Checkpoint Editor

Location: Abuja Grade: Manager

Role Purpose

The Checkpoint Editor leads Media Trust’s specialist in-depth, premium, and accountability journalism unit. The role is responsible for shaping and delivering original, high-impact journalism across investigations, documentaries, features, fact-checking, data journalism, and visual investigations. Checkpoint is designed to give Media Trust editorial distinction by producing rigorous “slow news”, exclusive reporting, and credible verification-driven journalism that strengthens the organization’s reputation as a trusted source of authoritative public-interest journalism. The desk works collaboratively across the newsroom and produces content for digital, print, television, radio, and social platforms. Core

Responsibilities

Editorial leadership and commissioning: Lead the editorial direction, priorities, and daily operation of the Checkpoint desk. Generate and commission high-value enterprise stories, investigations, explanatory features, and documentary projects. Identify public-interest themes, accountability opportunities, emerging misinformation trends, and underreported issues with potential for high editorial impact. Build a distinctive pipeline of short-, medium-, and long-term projects that strengthen Media Trust’s premium editorial offer. Present story proposals, editorial priorities, and project plans to the News Hub for approval, commissioning, and resource allocation. Investigations and enterprise journalism: Oversee the conception, planning, execution, and publication of investigations and special projects. Ensure investigations are evidence-based, properly sourced, legally and editorially sound, and developed with strong storytelling ambition. Coordinate collaborative investigations with journalists and editors from other intake desks, bureaux, and output teams. Ensure investigations are designed as multiplatform story packages, including supporting documents, interviews, graphics, timelines, explainers, and follow-up angles. Maintain a rolling slate of exclusives capable of generating audience impact, trust, and premium editorial value. Documentary and long-form storytelling: Lead the development of long-form current affairs documentaries and multimedia specials. Work closely with documentary producers, video teams, and Audio Visual colleagues from story conception through production and publication. Ensure stories are developed with clear narrative structure, editorial purpose, visual ambition, and cross-platform adaptability. Identify investigations and features suitable for documentary treatment for Trust TV, digital long-form, and special editorial packages. Features and deep explanatory journalism: Commission and edit in-depth features that provide context, explanation, insight, and audience understanding beyond daily breaking coverage. Convert complex developments into accessible, high-value explanatory journalism. Ensure major stories move beyond first publication into second-wave and third-wave coverage, including backgrounders, timelines, profiles, analysis, and deeper reporting. Fact-checking and verification: Lead Media Trust’s fact-checking operation and verification priorities. Identify misleading narratives, false claims, manipulated content, and disinformation trends circulating in public discourse and digital spaces. Commission and supervise timely fact-check output, especially around elections, governance, public policy, and high-impact national debates. Ensure fact-checking is rigorous, transparent, fair, and methodologically consistent. Build editorial relationships with reputable independent fact-checking organizations where beneficial. Develop special verification projects during major national editorial moments. Data journalism and evidence-led reporting: Lead the use of public datasets, official records, research databases, and institutional information to originate stories. Work with data journalists to identify patterns, trends, anomalies, and underreported public-interest stories. Ensure data reporting is accurate, interpretable, and editorially meaningful. Work closely with Audio Visual and digital teams to translate complex datasets into compelling charts, maps, graphics, interactives, and visual explainers. Promote data-led storytelling across other desks and support newsroom-wide editorial collaboration. Workflow coordination and newsroom integration: Operate Checkpoint fully within the intake-output newsroom model. Participate in editorial planning meetings, daily coordination, and News Hub workflow. Coordinate with: News Hub on priorities, approvals, timing, and editorial treatment Audio Visual on graphics, documentary treatment, visual investigations, and interactive storytelling Radar & Echo on social distribution, audience engagement, and follow-up Output desks to ensure stories are prepared appropriately for each platform Ensure all Checkpoint projects are properly entered into the Global Planner with clear deadlines, ownership, and production expectations. People management: Lead, mentor and develop Checkpoint staff including: Investigative journalists Documentary producers Fact-checkers Data journalists Visual investigations specialists All