What’s your media job: PressOne’s Ioana Epure on how freelancing equipped her for leadership

Editor’s note: The Fix is running the “What’s your media job” series where we look at different job positions and career trajectories in and around the news industry. For this edition, we spoke with Ioana Epure, Editorial Director of PressOne.

PressOne’s editorial director Ioana Epure discovered her leadership role almost organically. “It was a position that became necessary in our outlet. It gave birth to itself,” she explains.

Having joined the Romanian independent media outlet as a reporter in 2019, Epure found herself increasingly taking on organisational responsibilities as the publication grew. Last year, she officially transitioned from editor-in-chief to editorial director, overseeing commercial partnerships, native advertising, social media, and communications.

The shift marks another milestone in a career that has spanned commercial photography, entrepreneurship, and journalism – diverse experiences that Epure credits with equipping her for leadership. 

Co-steering the PressOne ship 

PressOne is nearing its tenth anniversary, having established itself as an independent Romanian media outlet focused on “perspectives, not noise.” They don’t operate a news desk, instead specialising in reportage, multimedia content, investigations, features, and analysis.

“Our mission is to help you filter through content, to give you a compass, to help you understand what your priorities are,” Epure explains.

The organisation operates across three main platforms:

• website with long-form journalism;
• a popular daily newsletter with over 54% open rate that aggregates content from across Romanian media;
• social media channels that have attracted younger audiences. Epure says the push towards TikTok and Instagram helped expand their audience beyond the traditional over-35 demographic.

PressOne works with a lightweight management structure that Epure describes as “astronauts” – three people steering the ship together:

• the publisher who handles grants and administrative matters;
• Epure as editorial director focusing on commercial and communications;
• the editor-in-chief who manages the editorial side.

Overall the organisation employs around 10 people full time, plus a group of contributors. The culture is remote-friendly; Epure herself splits her time between Bucharest and Athens.

In her role, Epure oversees commercial partnerships and native advertising, ensuring projects align with both PressOne’s values and those of their clients. She works closely with the social media team, manages brand communications, and collaborates on fundraising campaigns.

The organisation’s revenue comes primarily from grant support, with a gradual shift toward reducing grant dependency by increasing advertising and reader revenue. Epure says 54% of the publisher’s income in 2024 came from grants, a notable progress from the year before, when grants accounted for 60%. In the wake of the US aid collapse – which did affect PressOne but didn’t deliver a severe blow – they will focus even more on attracting non-grant revenue in 2025. 

From freelancing to PressOne

Epure’s journey to media leadership began with a teenage dream. “I wanted to be a journalist from the very start,” she recalls. Her first job at 19 was with a small digital outlet in Bucharest, followed by a master’s degree in freelance journalism in the UK – an experience that reshaped her career perspective.

“Living in the UK and doing my master’s there was what changed my mindset from, ‘Okay, I want to work for somebody’ to ‘I want to work for myself,’” she explains.

This entrepreneurial shift led her to start multiple businesses, including event management and commercial photography. After a disappointing experience at a national TV station in Romania convinced her to fully embrace freelancing, Epure developed a diverse skill set across multiple media formats.

Being a freelancer in Eastern Europe means that you have to know how to do everything

PressOne’s editorial director Ioana Epure

She taught herself various skills, working as a reporter for a radio station’s morning show while maintaining her photography business. (Even now, while working at PressOne, Epure has a smaller media project of her own – a Substack newsletter where she explains Greek news and media for expatriates living in Athens).

PressOne initially represented just another freelance opportunity – a chance to add journalism to her existing workload. What drew her to the outlet was its reputation for editorial integrity. “In a world where I felt like everybody had some interest of some sort, PressOne had this very solid [reputation for] honest reporting,” she explains.

Epure’s path to media leadership

The transition from contributor to leader happened gradually. As the team grew and the complexity of stories increased, Epure found herself naturally gravitating toward organisational roles. Last year she officially left the newsroom job to take on the commercial and communications side.

“It was a very normal thing that had to happen,” she reflects, though acknowledges some initial emotional difficulty. “I felt very sad in a way, because I have been a reporter for many years… It just felt like I was giving up something that was making me me” – but making this choice was right for the well-being of the organisation.

Journalists often struggle with the transition to management because of limited organisational experience. Epure credits her freelance background with preparing her. The entrepreneurial mindset she developed running her own businesses gave her a foundation in project management, client relations, and strategic thinking.

“As a freelancer, you really understand the value of your work… I applied this mindset to everything that I’m doing. The important thing is what you are delivering, which is what value you are bringing,” she says.

Still, as Epure took on leadership responsibilities, she initially felt lost without formal management training. She sought out specialised programs for journalists making the management transition, took free classes wherever she could find them, and attended industry conferences and workshops.

Looking forward, Epure sees herself continuing on the management path rather than returning to reporting. “I would like to stay on this path of doing media management because I understand that there are systemic problems in the way journalism is financed in Europe at the moment,” she explains. “I think that I can have a more valuable contribution in this side than I could ever have as a reporter.”

On the cover photo: PressOne’s newsroom. Courtesy of Ioana Epure

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