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The Marshall Project seeks an experienced editor and data journalist to lead our data team dedicated to high impact reporting on criminal justice and immigration enforcement in the United States. We’re looking for a creative editor and manager with a vision for data journalism in our newsroom and a collaborative spirit to carry it out.
Candidates best suited for the role will have a proven track record of editing and producing meaningful data-driven reporting projects, including expertise in data visualization, data reporting and analysis. You’ll be an experienced editor—at least five years—and data journalist with a mastery of reporting, interviewing and research via public records requests, documents and online resources. You’ll be a dedicated mentor, providing crucial data and visual editing to a team of three data reporters. You’ll collaborate with reporters, developers and editors across the newsroom to report and produce data and visual projects from start to finish, including translating data-heavy results into engrossing, high-impact stories. You’ll be excited both about shaping the projects of your reporters and initiating and carrying out your own with support from the team.
Interest in The Marshall Project’s mandate to cover the U.S. criminal justice and immigration systems is a must. A record of in-depth relevant coverage in areas like policing, prosecution, courts, prisons and jails is a significant asset.
As data editor, you’ll:
- Lead a team of data reporters and edit their stories, including giving feedback on data analysis, reporting and graphics/visualization.
- Collaborate with other Marshall Project editors, reporters and data reporters to conceive and shape stories.
- Pitch and carry out your own data projects with the support of the team.
- Be comfortable using databases as well as running data analysis with scripting languages like R or Python.
- Stay on top of relevant available sources of data to inform the team’s work and the newsroom at large, and propose creative workarounds when data is scarce or unavailable.
- Be acutely aware of the fallacies and pitfalls lurking in datasets and methods, and brainstorm solutions when these challenges arise.
- Collaborate with editors and reporters from partner organizations—print, broadcast and online—especially in local markets.
We’ll also be excited if you have:
- A solid knowledge of statistical techniques and how they can be applied to journalistic endeavors.
- Mastery of HTML and CSS and a knowledge of javascript and D3.
- Familiarity with the command line and Git.
We do not expect every candidate to be equally skilled in all these areas, and this is not a complete list of all relevant qualifications applicants might bring to the job. Please tell us about your other assets not mentioned here that may be valuable to this role. Reaching talent across a range of backgrounds and experiences is deeply important to us.
This job reports to the Editor-in-Chief.
Who We Are
The Marshall Project is a nonprofit news organization dedicated to covering America’s criminal justice system. In 2016, The Marshall Project was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism and was a Pulitzer finalist for investigative reporting. We have won two George Polk Awards and a 2017 National Magazine Award for General Excellence. We are not advocates—we follow the facts and we do not pander to any audience—but we have a declared mission: to create and sustain a sense of urgency about the criminal justice system. We do not generally cover breaking news (although we curate the reporting of other news outlets in our morning newsletter). Our work aims to highlight stories that other news organizations miss, underestimate or misunderstand. To assure our work reaches a larger audience, we partner or co-publish with other news outlets on almost all of our work; we have partnered with more than 130 newspapers, magazines, broadcasters and online sites.
We are an equal opportunity employer, committed to diversity. We welcome qualified applicants of all races, ethnicities, physical abilities, genders and sexual orientations, including people who have been incarcerated or otherwise involved with the criminal justice system.
To apply, use this form to submit a resume, cover letter, references and examples of stories you have edited with an explanation of how you shaped them.