Data Journalist

The Opportunity

The Data Journalist is responsible for building and maintaining editorial tools for data journalism and data informed storytelling. The Data Journalist works collaboratively within the newsroom to identify opportunities that would be strengthened with data journalism practices or graphics. Employees in this classification may perform work on any or all platforms with titles reflective of their roles.

 

General Responsibilities

• Builds and supports editorial tools and systems for data journalism and innovative storytelling.  
• Deploys scrapers, ETL processes and monitoring services to build data repositories for reporting and production.  
• Collaborates with reporting teams to identify important data sets, brainstorm coverage ideas and find gaps in project plans.  
• Explores and analyzes data for relevance and story potential and creates tools and dashboards to make data and analyses more accessible to the newsroom.   
• Helps configure pipelines and templates for presenting data in a meaningful way to internal and external users.  
• May pitch, report and write data-driven stories, including visualizations, for wbez.org and other digital platforms.  
• Plans and identifies strong data and graphics opportunities across the newsroom.
• Reviews data, analyses, stories, visualizations and graphics to ensure they uphold standards.

Other Responsibilities

• Work with the product team to develop best practices for news application infrastructure.
• Create tools and dashboards to make data and analyses more accessible to the newsroom. 
• Collaborate with newsroom colleagues to facilitate other use of data visualization and graphics in storytelling (without needing to be the only person making charts!)
• As part of the WBEZ newsroom, participate in cross-departmental product development work groups and brainstorming sessions, including collaborations with the Chicago Sun-Times. 

 

Minimum Qualifications

• A minimum of 1-year digital journalism experience in a deadline driven environment. 
• Proficiency in one or more of the following data management programming languages: SQL, Python and/or R.
• Proficiency in Excel, Google Sheets and one or more of the following data visualization tools: Flourish, Google Data Studios and/or Datawrapper,
• Familiarity with modern mapping tools (Arc, QGIS, MapBox, Maps4News, etc.)
• Content Management System (CMS) and digital media production skills.
• Proficiency with current social media platforms including but not limited to, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.
• Demonstrated ability to produce high quality work in a collaborative environment.
• Familiarity with AP style and journalistic standards for accuracy and fairness.
• Experience organizing and focusing projects with multiple deadlines.

Preferred Qualifications

• Familiarity with node.js, JavaScript, Knight Lab storytelling tools and GitHub in collaboration with other journalists
• Familiarity with WBEZ content
• Knowledge of Chicago and the surrounding region

 

Compensation

The expected pay range for this position is $76,500 to $85,000 per ANNUM.

Chicago Public Media provides pay ranges representing its good faith estimate of what the organization reasonably expects to pay for a position.  The pay offered to a selected candidate will be determined based on factors such as (but not limited to the scope and responsibilities of the position, the qualifications of the selected candidate, departmental budget availability, internal equity, geographical location, and external market pay for comparable jobs.