Data Journalist - ABC Owned Television Stations

Disney Entertainment’s eight owned ABC stations are multiplatform leaders in local news and information. Located in Glendale, California, ABC7 Los Angeles is Southern California’s No. 1 local news and information source. A prominent leader in digital and social audience engagements, ABC 7 was the first station in the Los Angeles market to regularly broadcast news in high definition. The station continues to proudly serve its community with deep partnerships including its exclusive local broadcast of the Los Angeles Rams and LA Pride. An award-winning station, ABC7 was most recently honored with four 2020 Regional Edward R. Murrow Awards by the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA) for news coverage, receiving the distinction for Overall Excellence, Breaking News Coverage, Excellence in Video, and Best Newscast; in addition to the 2020 National Edward R. Murrow Award for Breaking News Coverage in Large Market Television.

As a Data Journalist for ABC Owned Television Stations, you will obtain and analyze data to develop high-impact, revelatory news stories, investigations, and related content across all eight OTV stations in collaboration with a nationwide data team. Your data journalism will support investigations, as well as daily consumer and breaking news. You will regularly pitch and produce data-driven content for local, regional, and national projects. This role requires practical data journalism experience and a proven record of breaking original data stories. It is based in Glendale, CA, but is part of a team of data journalists based nationwide.

Responsibilities:

• Serve as an advocate and resource for data journalism across ABC OTV, by identifying, acquiring, and analyzing data sets of potential interest to ABC OTV

• Report revelatory news stories that serve our communities and hold local leaders accountable

• Collaborate with reporters and producers, across multiple newsrooms, to develop broadcast, streaming and digital content based in data, but supported by context and people-first storytelling

• Collaborate with videographers, editors, graphic artists, and digital producers to bring data to life on television – and on all digital and emerging platforms

• Data journalists on the ABC OTV data team are not just gathering numbers to hand off to other reporters, but rather working with producers, reporters, investigators, and others to get to the bottom of important stories

Basic Qualifications:

• Ability to write quickly and accurately and with an eye for brevity and clarity.
• Established competence with using Excel and advanced data analysis platforms and languages such as R or Python to develop news stories from data. Experience in coding and data visualization are an important plus.
• Ability to work collaboratively across newsrooms and disciplines.
• Self-starter able to work independently and to hone news judgment and story sense.
• Technical aptitude to learn new software skills, including programming and automation.
• Understanding of the importance of local accountability and solutions journalism.
• Detail-oriented in handling of large datasets, with a focus on accuracy and fairness.
• Up to date on developments, trends and tools in the data journalism space.

Preferred Experience:

• Track record, documented by work samples, of delivering high-impact local journalism.
• Experience working in a local newsroom environment and passion for local journalism. An academic newsroom environment is acceptable, if it resulted in public-facing work.
• Experience working in a video or television news environment is a plus, but not required. We will consider experienced newspaper journalists for this position.

Preferred Education:

• Degree or equivalent work experience demonstrating data journalism proficiency

The hiring range for this position in California is $73,390 to $98,450 per year. The base pay actually offered will take into account internal equity and also may vary depending on the candidate’s geographic region, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience among other factors. A bonus and/or long-term incentive units may be provided as part of the compensation package, in addition to the full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits, dependent on the level and position offered.