Come join one of the fastest growing and most ambitious newsrooms in the world! BuzzFeed News is seeking a reporter skilled in data analysis to work on news and features.
You’ll collaborate deeply with reporters and editors on the breaking news, national, science, technology, business, entertainment, and politics teams.
We’re looking for someone with a passion for news and a commitment to using data to find amazing, important stories — both quick hits and deeper analyses that drive conversations. If you think you’re a great fit, but don’t meet some of the criteria below, no problem; just explain your qualifications in your cover letter.
An ideal candidate will:
- Play well with others. You should enjoy — and excel at — collaborating with reporters, editors, lawyers, designers, and more.
- Write clearly. At the end of the day, we write stories for readers. You must be able to translate your findings into language that the general public can appreciate.
- Deeply understand core statistical concepts and gotchas. You don’t need a degree in statistics, but you should be familiar with statistical significance testing, linear/logistic regression, sampling bias, et cetera.
- Demonstrate proficiency in data analysis. You should have a strong command of at least one toolset that (a) allows for filtering, joining, pivoting, and aggregating tabular data, and (b) enables reproducible workflows. For instance: Python/Pandas, R, and/or SQL.
- Know how to obtain and restructure data. The data we want is rarely the data we have. So you should, ideally, be able to file Freedom of Information Act requests, scrape webpages, munge spreadsheets, and extract structured data from unstructured documents.
This person will report to the BuzzFeed News data editor, Jeremy Singer-Vine, and be based in either New York, DC, Los Angeles, or San Francisco. We offer competitive compensation, a generous parental leave policy, and a stock option program.
Please apply with a resumé and a cover letter describing three significant stories to which you’ve made a major contribution. If you don’t come from a journalism background, please point to three projects you have worked on that demonstrate your skill sets (e.g., open-source projects on Github, etc).
About BuzzFeed
BuzzFeed is the leading independent digital media and tech company delivering news and entertainment content to a global audience. We have offices in 19 cities around the world and more than 1500 employees including reporters, video producers, data scientists, engineers, brand strategists, and more. We fuse hard work and fun, through a culture of experimentation, teamwork, equality, and humble confidence. As an employee, you’ll enjoy perks like office events, snacks, career development courses, and no work on your birthday! But most importantly, you’ll work with inspiring colleagues to build tools and create content that helps connect people all over the world.