Visuals Director

Role Overview

The Banner is hiring a Visuals Director to shape and oversee visual storytelling across the newsroom. This role covers photography, illustration, design, multimedia, and digital presentation for stories across Maryland. The position reports to the Banner Manager Editor and leads a team of visual journalists and creative contributors, including staff photographers, designers, illustrators, and freelancers.

The successful candidate will work side by side with editors, reporters, audience, product, digital, and social teams to make sure visual coverage is strong, accurate, accessible, ethical, and effective on every platform. This is a leadership role for someone with deep newsroom experience, strong editorial instincts, and a clear sense of how visuals can strengthen public-interest journalism.

Key Responsibilities

You will guide daily visual production while also helping set the long-term visual direction of the newsroom. The job includes managing staff, directing freelance contributors, and shaping visual strategy for daily news, breaking coverage, enterprise reporting, investigations, service journalism, and special projects. You will also collaborate early in the reporting process to determine the best visual treatment for each story.

Work Scope and Expectations

The role calls for hands-on leadership across a wide range of formats, from photo essays and illustrations to comics, explainers, and multimedia packages. You will create visual briefs, storyboards, shot lists, mood boards, and project plans, while also helping establish and maintain editorial standards. The position requires attention to accuracy, fairness, representation, captioning, credits, accessibility, and ethics. You will also oversee budgets, deadlines, tools, workflows, and production priorities.

Candidate Profile

The ideal applicant brings extensive experience in visual journalism or a closely related creative field, plus a record of managing people, projects, or cross-functional editorial work. A strong portfolio is essential, along with the ability to combine creative direction with practical newsroom judgment. Familiarity with Adobe Creative Suite and related tools is important, as is comfort working across web, mobile, newsletters, social platforms, and multimedia formats.

Additional Experience Preferred

Helpful background includes leading visual coverage in a local, regional, or metro newsroom; managing photographers, designers, illustrators, photo editors, or visual journalists; and directing enterprise or investigative visual projects. Experience with Baltimore or the surrounding region is a plus, as is knowledge of accessibility standards and the use of audience insights or analytics to improve digital presentation without compromising editorial quality.

Schedule and Work Environment

This is a hybrid position based in Baltimore, Maryland. Regular newsroom collaboration is expected, and the role may involve field reporting, community events, breaking news coverage, and occasional evening, weekend, holiday, or irregular hours depending on newsroom needs.

Compensation and Benefits

The salary range for this position is $115,000 to $135,000 per year. Actual pay may differ based on experience, internal equity, and other business considerations. The organization reviews compensation regularly to help maintain fairness across the team.

Benefits include flexible paid time off, a 401(k) retirement plan with company match, student loan debt repayment assistance for qualifying employees, comprehensive medical/dental/vision/prescription coverage, FSA/HSA options, family and dependent coverage, sick leave with rollover eligibility, commuter benefits, 11 paid national holidays, an employee assistance program, generous parental leave, and company-paid access to a wellness platform focused on mental, financial, and physical well-being.

Core Values

The organization emphasizes honesty, respect, collaboration, trust, direct communication, community-centered storytelling, accountability, innovation, inclusion, and continuous improvement. It also states a strong commitment to diversity, inclusion, and providing equal opportunity for employees to reach their full potential.

Accessibility and Accommodation

Reasonable accommodations are available for applicants with disabilities during the hiring process. Candidates who need support with the application, interview process, or access to facilities may request accommodations by contacting [email protected].

What Success Looks Like

Success in this role means visual planning is more deeply integrated into newsroom workflows, staff and freelancers receive clear direction and useful feedback, major stories are supported by compelling visual execution, and The Banner’s visual journalism reflects Baltimore and Maryland communities with accuracy, dignity, nuance, and care. Strong standards, better accessibility, and more engaging storytelling are also central measures of success.