Nicholas F. Lyerly
Editorial Director, Consumer health publishing
Atlanta, GA · (404) 555 0175 · name@example.com · linkedin.com/in/nicholasflyerly
Key Qualifications
EXPERIENCE
Thirteen years in editorial roles, seven leading teams of ten or more.
INDUSTRIES
Consumer health publishing, regional lifestyle magazines, daily newspapers.
SPECIALTIES
Editorial standards, service journalism, audience growth, editor development.
SYSTEMS
WordPress, Contentful, Chartbeat, Google Analytics, Airtable, Asana.
CREDENTIALS
Member of the Association of Health Care Journalists and the Society for Editing.
EDUCATION
Bachelor of Arts in Journalism, University of Georgia.
Executive Summary
Editorial director with thirteen years in consumer health publishing, seven of them running newsrooms. Owns the editorial calendar, the standards manual and the corrections policy for a national title read by nine million people a month. Hires and coaches editors, and holds the line on accuracy when a story draws commercial pressure.
Signature Achievements
- Grew monthly readership from five million to nine million in three years by rebuilding the service journalism calendar around real search demand.
- Cut the published correction rate by 62 percent after introducing a two source verification rule and a checklist every editor signs before publication.
- Hired eleven editors and writers and held voluntary turnover under 8 percent in a year when two competing titles lost a third of their staff.
- Directed a six part investigation into hospital billing that ran across print, web and audio and won a national health reporting award.
- Rewrote the standards manual and corrections policy and trained 40 contributors on it, ending a pattern of sponsored work reaching readers unlabeled.
- Moved the title onto Contentful and cut the time from approved draft to live page from four hours to 35 minutes.
Professional Experience
Editorial Director
Meridian Health Media, Atlanta, GA 2021 to present
Editorial team of 22 covering news, service journalism and video for a national consumer health title with nine million monthly readers.
- Owns the annual editorial calendar and personally approves every topic that carries a medical claim.
- Chairs the standards committee that reviews sourcing, disclosure and corrections across all channels.
- Reads Chartbeat and search performance weekly and reallocates commissioning budget every quarter.
- Represents the newsroom to the commercial team and rules on where advertising ends and editorial begins.
- Manages a freelance budget of 640,000 dollars a year across roughly 300 commissions.
Executive Editor
Southbound Living Magazine, Atlanta, GA 2017 to 2021
Regional lifestyle monthly with a print circulation of 120,000 and a digital desk of six writers and one producer.
- Led the move from a print first schedule to a daily publishing rhythm on one shared calendar.
- Commissioned and edited long form features, including the annual reader survey issue.
- Introduced a fact checking pass for every feature longer than 2,000 words.
- Coached four staff writers to their first national bylines.
Health Editor
The Piedmont Courier, Greenville, SC 2013 to 2017
Daily newspaper newsroom of 55 covering hospitals, public health and insurance across the upstate region.
- Edited roughly 140 stories a year on hospital finance, clinic closures and county health data.
- Built the newsroom's first list of medical experts willing to speak on deadline.
- Ran the Sunday health page and mentored two interns each summer.
Licensure and Certification
Member, Association of Health Care Journalists
Member, the Society for Editing
Education
Bachelor of Arts in Journalism, University of Georgia
Poynter Institute leadership program for newsroom managers, 2019
Core Skills
Editorial standards · Corrections policy · Editorial calendars · Service journalism · Fact checking · Editor coaching · Search and social distribution · Freelance budgeting · Audience analytics · Newsroom hiring · Headline writing