MuckRock Data Reporter

MuckRock is seeking a smart, driven, enthusiastic data reporter to join our growing editorial team. Working with our staff and partner newsrooms, you’ll use data and public records to tell some of the most important stories of our time — from the COVID-19 pandemic and public health, to climate change and the environment, to criminal justice and policing.

You’ll work on award-winning projects like “Uncounted,” our ongoing investigation into death certificate errors and COVID-19 death undercounting with the USA TODAY network, which was shortlisted as one of the top 100 data projects in the world by the Sigma Awards and won first prize for pandemic coverage in the 2022 National Headliner Awards.

We’ll also soon launch three new projects — looking at air pollution in Chicago, child care shortages in Michigan and the deadly impact of wildfire smoke in California and across the U.S. — with a consortium of partners. MuckRock’s first-ever data reporter will work closely on all of these projects.

We will begin reviewing applications May 16 but will keep the application open until the position is filled, with a target hire date of June 27. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to email derek@muckrock.com.

As MuckRock’s data reporter, you will:

• Conceive, and ultimately publish, impact-focused investigative journalism packages with a data focus, including text and multimedia stories and data visualizations;
• Make phone calls, conduct interviews and, on occasion, do on-the-ground reporting;
• Assist fellow journalists with data brainstorming, acquisition, cleaning, bullet-proofing and analysis;
• Collect data from local, state and national sources, including FOIA’ing, scraping, cleaning, analyzing and preparing it for publication;
• Work collaboratively with MuckRock’s other departments to help enable your investigations while improving our suite of transparency tools;
• Teach best practices and newsroom data policies, both at MuckRock and with partner newsrooms.

As MuckRock’s data reporter, you will need:

• Comfort using Python and/or R programming languages for statistical analysis with large datasets, along with database management systems, such as SQL Server or PostgreSQL, and Excel and Pivot Tables;
• Experience with modeling statistical relationships and predictive analytics, using both regression-based and machine-learning methods;
• Familiarity with academic research designs, quantitative methods and foundational peer-reviewed literature in disciplines such as public health, the environment and criminal justice;
• Ability to summarize technical research for a mass audience in concise, stylish prose.
• Ability to work well on a distributed and multidisciplinary team.

As MuckRock’s data reporter, success looks like:

• Publishing impact-ready journalism, in all of its forms, with collaborative newsroom partners;
• Coming up with ideas, both small and large, for ongoing and future journalism projects;
• Pursue projects from an accountability lens, always thinking about the most vexing and potentially harmful issues we're focused on, without venturing into advocacy.
• A bachelor’s degree degree in journalism, computer science or a related quantitative field is preferred but not mandatory. We’re looking for applicants with at least five years of experience in journalism, corporate data science or academia but we are open and encourage those from non-traditional backgrounds to apply.

We are a remote-only newsroom and encourage anyone to apply, regardless of location.

Our team loves working at MuckRock because…

• This will be a full-time remote role with an annual salary range of $60,000 to $65,000, based on experience.
• Three weeks of paid vacation annually, plus 10 holidays (U.S. postal holidays), and week between Christmas and New Year’s Day off.
• Health insurance with full premium paid for employees and 75% of the premium for dependents.
• Professional development, including covering costs for conference and event attendance.
• All board meetings are open to all staff and include meaningful engagement.
• Company dental, vision, and health flexible spending account plans.
• Paid parental leave
• 401K with 4% match
• Life and Disability Insurance
• Budget for a new laptop that you pick out and other home office purchases.
• Distributed team with flexible scheduling.

We recognize that diverse teams make the strongest teams, and we encourage people from all backgrounds to apply.

About MuckRock

Reaching between 40 and 80 million people each month, the MuckRock Foundation builds tools, hosts resources, and cultivates communities that help inform the world about the most urgent issues we face. We’re a fully distributed team with staff in Alabama, Arkansas, Massachusetts, New York, and beyond that encourages cross-disciplinary work and close collaboration. We’re equally interested in the potential and dangers of machine learning while also mastering and reinventing traditional disciplines like public records and reviewing government filings.

Our work has helped expose the COVID-19 death undercount, military gear flowing into police departments and schools, facial recognition software and drones secretly surveilling communities, and thousands of other stories in the public interest, while teaching millions about the power of public records and primary source materials.

Through our MuckRock request platform, we’ve helped file over a hundred thousand records requests all across the United States, while our DocumentCloud platform is used by leading newsrooms around to host, analyze, and share over 130 million pages of primary source materials. We also run FOIA Machine, oTranscribe, and are always looking for the next innovation, editorial partnership, and new insight that will help build a more informed public.

Across our platforms, we reach between 40 and 80 million people each month and are relied upon by over 60,000 users around the world, assisting in both multinational investigative reporting projects and town council beat reporting.