Researcher, Election Analytics

The New York Times is hiring a researcher to join its Election Analytics desk, a multidisciplinary team composed of journalists, statisticians, pollsters and developers, to help build out novel datasets for use in its election coverage.

You would be responsible for collecting, categorizing and/or cleaning data that forms a fundamental part of some of The Times’s flagship election products — namely, the Needle, The Times/Siena Poll and our polling trackers. You would be expected to go far beyond the obvious in uncovering data that could make our election coverage more insightful, more accurate and more interesting. You should be motivated to find data that nobody else has discovered or put to good use yet. You would need to ensure the accuracy of your work and that the data you collect is reliable enough to be used in some of the most scrutinized journalism that The Times produces.

You would be working in collaboration with colleagues in the Election Analytics desk to identify new areas for research, but you would also be expected to contribute your own ideas for worthwhile research targets. You should be a quick learner who is eager to dive into an unfamiliar area and prepare a memo, presentation or spreadsheet laying out what you’ve learned. You would also be expected to think carefully about how to make the data most useful to others, both in our department and throughout the newsroom, through good organization, communication and documentation and through collaboration with colleagues to create easy-to-understand internal dashboards and graphics.

This is a hybrid position based in New York that requires regular attendance in the office each week per departmental guidance. This position will require working some nights, weekends and holidays during election season.

To apply, please include a cover letter of no more than 600 words that directly addresses your interest in political data and that describes a project where you created or maintained a database and what your contributions were.

Responsibilities:

• Finding all newly published political polls and accurately entering the data into a database
• Researching public websites to discover new opportunities in the data that is available
• Calling and emailing pollsters and election officials to request data
• Fact-checking articles, graphics and poll crosstabs
• Categorizing and cleaning data
• Creating project plans when tasked with finding data in a new area of interest, including documenting risks to comprehensiveness and accuracy 
• Keeping good records that are accessible to colleagues on how to find information in the future or who to contact to get the most reliable information
• Working with colleagues to ensure the information we collect is reflected in our coverage and available to readers
• Maintaining documentation and making it available to colleagues on points of contact and best practices
• May contribute to stories in your area of responsibility and work on other projects as needed and available
• 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.
• You will report to the Director, Election Data Analytics. 

Basic qualifications:

• 2+ years of relevant experience
• Passion for political data
• Experience working with election-related datasets
• Demonstrated ability to meet inflexible deadlines
• Demonstrated attention to detail and ability to work independently
• Demonstrated experience maintaining complex spreadsheets, including manual data entry and data cleaning 
• Experience creating complicated spreadsheets from scratch, including creating a new data structure and long-term flexibility
• Strong interpersonal skills; you should be excited to invest the time to build relationships with sources

Preferred qualifications:

• Experience working in a newsroom
• Knowledge of what’s possible using scripting languages, such as Javascript, Python, PHP, R, etc.
• Advanced experience writing formulas in spreadsheets, such as using pivot tables, cross-referencing data, etc.
• Experience querying data stored in MySQL, Postgres, Bigtable, etc. databases

This position is represented by the NewsGuild of NY.

REQ-018256