Deputy Editor, Election Analytics

About the Role

The New York Times is looking for an experienced editor and manager to help lead its coverage of elections and polling.

The position is part of the Election Analytics desk, a multidisciplinary team composed of journalists, statisticians, pollsters and developers. Election Analytics is responsible for data-driven coverage of elections, including The New York Times/Siena College Poll, the election night forecast model known as The Needle and our polling trackers.

In this role, you will help the team expand the desk’s coverage of voting, election results and polling beyond The Needle and the results of Times/Siena polls. Working with the director of election analytics, you will help craft and drive plans for data-driven stories before, during and after election night. You should be experienced at shaping stories at a high level and refining copy to be clean and easily read by a broad audience. You should be someone who isn’t afraid to dive into a spreadsheet with a reporter or to question an assumption. You should also have experience developing distinctive new areas of coverage: as a new team, many of our areas of focus and interest are still emerging.

You should have sharp news judgment and the ability to stay cool under tight deadlines. You should have the ability to lead your team in brainstorming fresh ideas that go beyond the common narrative. And you should be an empathetic manager who is excited to help people grow over the course of an election season, whether it’s reacting to the daily news cycle or preparing for the next election night.

This is a hybrid position that requires regular attendance in the office each week per departmental guidance. New York is strongly preferred, but candidates wishing to stay in Washington, D.C., would be considered. This position will require working some nights, weekends and holidays during election season.

This is a new role on a relatively new team, and you will have the opportunity to help shape the position based on your skills and background. Some core areas we expect you will be responsible for include:

Responsibilities:

• Serving as the assigning editor for an interdisciplinary group of journalists, and become a go-to mentor to those looking to grow as writers and analytical thinkers
• Working with the director to develop and oversee the execution of a plan for Election Analytics coverage of elections, from pre-election curtain-raisers to post-election stories
• Coordinating and editing coverage based on The Times/Siena Poll, including working with our polling team to draft incisive and newsworthy questionnaires
• Serving as a liaison with other desks when stories would benefit from sharing expertise, building strong relationships with colleagues and staying in frequent conversation with desks we work with frequently
• Leading our polling trackers, including overseeing the staff that populates the database, ensuring the pages are up to date with the latest context and working with the Graphics department to develop new features
• You will report to the Director of Election Analytics.

Basic Qualifications:

• 7+ years of relevant journalism experience
• Experience editing stories to a high standard of readability, including helping reporters identify the right big-picture idea to follow and turning that idea into copy that is clean and understandable by a broad audience
• Experience working in an area of journalism that heavily relies on fluency with data, such as elections, the economy, health care or demographics
• Repeated experience exercising excellent news judgement in high-pressure situations
• Experience overseeing multiple direct reports
• Strong organizational skills, including displaying strong attention to detail and excellent time management to consistently meet deadlines 
• Demonstrate support and understanding of our value of journalistic independence and a strong commitment to our mission to seek the truth and help people understand the world

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience telling data-driven stories through visuals, such as static or interactive graphics
• Experience working with and mentoring journalists with nontraditional backgrounds
• Experience working on projects that require a blend of journalistic, technical and project management skills
• Experience developing and executing on a vision for a new area of coverage

To apply, please include a cover letter of no more than 400 words that speaks to the one area mentioned under the preferred qualifications section above that you believe is your strongest attribute. Additionally, please include links to or copies of three stories or story-based projects for which you were the principal editor.

REQ-018339