Data Reporter/Journalist

Word In Black, a collaborative of 10 Black-owned media, is seeking a smart, motivated data reporter/journalist to join its editorial team as a 20-hour per week independent contractor.

Role and responsibilities include:

• Generate ideas for data-based and driven stories and analysis, on a range of topics, which would be suitable for visualization in legacy and new media across the collaborative
• Collaborate with Managing Director and designer to come up with original and engaging ways of visualizing this content
• Produce and write copy, as required, to accompany these visualizations
• Working on the data for output, for print and web, as required by Managing Director
• Plan and execute quantitative analyses — and interpret results — in support of investigative stories and visualization
• Assist reporters with data brainstorming, acquisition, cleaning, integrity-checking and analysis
• Validate and spot-check data work done by other journalists on the team
• Wrangle data, including FOIA requests for such data, scraping it, cleaning it, analyzing it and preparing it for publication
• Keep up on best-in-class statistical tools – and be able to present them to wider stakeholders from a non-statistical background
• Exploring and summarizing data using relational database software
• Visualize and find patterns in spatial data using GIS software
• Use statistical tools to identify significant data trends
• Employ skills and experience to advise on best approaches to data-led storytelling and the development and publication of data-led projects

Required technical skills include: A good understanding of statistics and statistical analysis; a strong grasp of how to clean, parse and query data; a good knowledge of some of the following: spreadsheet software, SQL, Python and R; demonstrable experience of visualizing data, using either tools or scripts; experience of GIS or other mapping software; experience of gathering information from Freedom of Information requests.

Desirable skills include: Knowledge of basic scripting and HTML, as it might pertain to data visualization or data analysis and knowledge of several of the following; Carto, D3, QGIS, Tableau.

Ideal candidate must have:

• A track record of working remotely and be a self-starter
• Experience working on data projects and experience doing statistical or data-scientific analysis, either in academia or in another research setting
• Excellent interpersonal skills, solid editorial judgment and the ability to write quickly and cleanly
• A solid understanding of the tools of data analysis, such as database management systems (SQL Server or PostgreSQL), statistics software (R), Microsoft Excel, etc.

A bachelor’s degree is required. A degree in journalism or a quantitative field is a plus.

Ideally this will become a full-time position as more funding becomes available

Forward resumes and queries to Nick Charles at nick.charles@nulllocalmedia.org