DATA REPORTER

THE CITY is building an aggressive and ambitious reporting team to produce groundbreaking investigative journalism that exposes corruption, wrongdoing, negligence and violations of public trust. The team will be devoted to deep digging that yields journalism that breaks new ground and has an impact on the lives of New Yorkers. As part of that work we're seeing a data journalist.

THE ORGANIZATION

Launched in 2019, THE CITY is New York City's preeminent nonprofit, nonpartisan local news organization. Working across all five boroughs, our award-winning journalists bring diverse skills and backgrounds to the task of covering New York's neighborhoods, holding the powerful to account and making sense of the greatest city in the world.

Journalism by THE CITY uncovered the scheme that led to the indictment and resignation of New York's lieutenant governor, helped secure repairs in public housing, prompted solitary confinement reforms following the preventable death of a transgender woman on Rikers Island, and led to legislation addressing grueling working conditions of New York's delivery workers. During the COVID pandemic, THE CITY remedied inequities in vaccine access, prompted tougher oversight of emergency city contracts and led the Department of Education tocurtail child welfare investigations of families whose children lacked the technology to sign into online school.

THE CITY is in a growth phase that will add reporters and editors to our newsroom, strengthen our business capabilities and build our revenue-generating capacities.

THE POSITION

THE CITY is bolstering its investigative firepower, adding a data journalist to its award-winning newsroom. 

The data reporter will conceive and carry out focused, in-depth data investigations that unearth stories that would not be possible using other methods. The successful candidate will bring depth of data experience and goal-oriented persistence in getting the goods, and getting it right the first time.

Ability to work independently is valued but collaboration with others in the newsroom is vital to success in this role.

AS A DATA REPORTER, YOU WILL…

• Plan and execute quantitative analyses as part of investigative inquiries, supporting stories and visualizations
• Wrangle data, including FOIL'ing for it, scraping it, cleaning it, analyzing it and preparing it for publication.
• Interact with sources using the highest professional standards of ethics and integrity.
• Pursue and manage documents, data and other materials with persistence, creativity, ambition and discipline.
• Assist fellow reporters with data brainstorming, acquisition, cleaning, integrity-checking and analysis.
• Bulletproof and spot-check your own work as well as work done by other journalists on the team and around the newsroom.
• Secure reliable expert support to ensure accurate and nuanced assessment of complex statistical, legal, regulatory, financial and other technical information.
• Team with others across THE CITY's newsroom, including news applications, visuals, engagement and reporting staff.
• Collaborate with other news organizations on partnership projects. THE CITY's partners include ProPublica, WNYC/Gothamist, The Marshall Project, Texas Tribune, Chalkbeat, Documented and City Limits.

QUALIFICATIONS

• At least three years of experience in data journalism or data analysis with a proven track record of accuracy and high data-integrity
• A passion for all things New York and a deep investment in the power of local reporting
• Demonstrated fluency in the tools of data reporting such as R or Python/pandas, GIS, SQL, etc.
• Familiarity with properly executing – and explaining to lay readers – statistical analyses.
• Experience with data acquisition methods, including information requests, source cultivation, and scraping.
• Impeccable judgment and the ability to safeguard the highest journalistic standards under pressure
• A love of collaboration in and outside the newsroom and the ability to have tough conversations while building mutual trust and respect
• Ability to multitask, flipping seamlessly between poking around on leads to interviews to writing to finalizing an investigation to representing our work post-publication
• Last but not least, bring enthusiasm, curiosity and excitement to the newsroom

OTHER THINGS TO KNOW…

Salary range: $100,000 - $133,000

Benefits: Generous paid time off, including 20 vacation days, 10 holidays, 2 floating holidays and 8 paid sick days. Medical, Dental and Vision. 401k Plan

Location: New York City. We won't consider remote work.

Job descriptions like this one are wish lists that are rarely completely fulfilled, even by the successful candidate. Don't hesitate to apply even if you don't check every box. You can be right for the job even if you're missing a bullet point or two, and you can have important skills we haven't thought of that would make you a compelling candidate. Even if this doesn't end up being a match, applying puts you on our radar – and it's free!

We are dedicated to improving our newsroom, in part by better reflecting the people of the city we cover. We are committed to diversity and building an inclusive environment for people of all backgrounds and ages, and we especially encourage members of traditionally under-represented communities to apply, including women, people of color, LGBTQ people, immigrants, veterans, people with disabilities, and those with lived experiences in the communities we cover.