Section Editor

A section editor sits in the middle layer of a newsroom hierarchy, between the top editors (executive editor, managing editor) and the reporters who file copy. They own a defined coverage area — Politics, Foreign/World, Business, Opinion, Metro, Sports, Culture, Investigations — and are accountable for what runs in that section across print, web, and often newsletters or podcasts tied to the beat.

Day-to-day responsibilities typically include:

• Commissioning and assigning stories to staff reporters and freelancers on the section's beats.
• Line-editing drafts for accuracy, structure, tone, and house style before passing copy to a copy desk or standards editor.
• Story selection — deciding what gets covered, at what length, and with what prominence (front page, section front, web homepage slot).
• Budget meetings, where section editors pitch their day's or week's stories to senior editors competing for space and resources.
• Managing reporters, including hiring, beat assignments, performance reviews, and source development.

For researchers and MUN delegates, the section editor is the gatekeeper who shapes how a policy area is framed for a mass audience. The Foreign or International editor at outlets like The New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, or Reuters determines which conflicts, treaties, and diplomatic stories get sustained coverage and which fade. That editorial judgment influences public salience and, indirectly, policymaker attention — a dynamic studied in agenda-setting research since McCombs and Shaw's 1972 Public Opinion Quarterly article.

Section editors are distinct from opinion/editorial page editors, who commission argument rather than reporting and typically report through a separate chain to preserve the news/opinion wall, and from copy editors, who focus on language and fact-checking rather than commissioning. Titles vary: at British papers the role is often called desk editor or simply editor (e.g., "Foreign Editor"); at U.S. papers, section editor or department head.