The California Newsroom and KQED are hiring a data journalist to join a year-long project to produce collaborative,  investigative reporting on climate change .  The warming planet poses an existential threat to our way of life in California, with severe heat waves, historic droughts, rising seas, and 7.3 million acres burned by wildfire in the state over the last two years. 

We’re looking for a data journalist who seeks to hold leaders accountable for their response to this crisis, one who can work together with reporters across the state to generate impact and real world change. We’re looking for a reporter that is  extremely collaborative and is excited to coach reporters around the state.

This is an opportunity to help grow the California Newsroom, a statewide news partnership of NPR, KQED, Cap Radio, KPCC, KCRW, KPBS, and other non-profit and public media organizations across the state. 

This person will delve  into data, including  the health impacts of wildfire smoke and the effectiveness of state and federal climate mitigation efforts. A key component of this job will be  creating and sharing  data products  that power local reporting around California (and  potentially across the country). 

This position  will work with the CA Newsroom, and other teams in California, including KQED’s climate desk, on high-impact, accountability-driven stories. This position can be located anywhere in the state.

This is a limited term position lasting one year. 

One of our core values at KQED is that we are better together, and that we commit to learning, growth, and holding ourselves accountable. We value the contributions of marginalized people in society — including Black, Indigenous, and all people of color,  people with disabilities, and LGBTQIA+ people — and we believe that these communities must be centered in the work we do, and we strongly encourage members of these communities to apply.

Essential Functions:

• Make public records requests and scrape, clean and analyze data
• Help design and lead data-driven collaborative investigations  
• Train and coach reporters in California in interpreting datasets to identify and tell stories of vital importance to their communities.  
• Raise data maturity of newsrooms across the collaboration
• Identify best ways to make data shareable to anyone who might be interested in working with datasets

Knowledge/Experience Required:

• Experience analyzing data and knowledge of how to use relational datasets. 
• Newsroom experience, either locally or nationally, especially involving stories that are centered around telling people’s stories
• Experience with and appreciation of the challenges of collaborative journalism
• Excellent listening and communication skills
• Ability to stay focused, organized and proactive. You’ll be working with a number of journalists across organizations, often dealing with several different editors. 

Knowledge/Experience Desired:

• Non-English language skills (fluency in Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese or other languages with large California speaking populations) desired
• Expertise with climate change science 
• Experience with narrative storytelling

Non-Essential Functions:

• Other duties, as assigned.

Let us tell you more about our benefits:

Whether you’re single, married, have children, are in a domestic partnership or anything in between, we have you covered. Employees at KQED enjoy a family-friendly workplace offering 20 days of paid time off, 11 paid holidays, paid parental leave, family medical leave benefits, comprehensive health/vision/dental and commuter benefits as well as a 403(b) with employer match. KQED encourages diversity, openness and offers training to support personal and professional development. In addition, we are proud to offer Employee Resource Groups, wellness programs as well as free KQED membership.

The mission that drives us:

KQED is for everyone who wants to be more.      

Our television, radio, digital media and educational services change lives for the better and help individuals and communities achieve their full potential.

KQED serves the people of Northern California with a community-supported alternative to commercial media.      

We provide citizens with the knowledge they need to make informed decisions; convene community dialogue; bring the arts to everyone and engage audiences to share their stories. We help students and teachers thrive in 21st-century classrooms, and take people of all ages on journeys of exploration- exposing them to new people, places and ideas.

We celebrate diversity, embrace innovation, value lifelong learning and partner with those who share our passion for public services

https://kqed.applytojob.com/apply/chsZ3nV5qG/FullTime-LimitedTerm-Investigative-Data-Journalist-Climate