Data Journalist at BBC

Role Responsibility

• The purpose of the visual journalism team is to unlock the potential of multimedia storytelling across all our platforms - mobile, desktop, tablet and TV. By using graphical tools and combining those of data and journalistic rigor, the team aims to produce powerful visual explanations that improve understanding of the news. 

 Key responsibilities for this role: 

• To enhance and explain major news stories.
• To research, write, co-ordinate, manage and deliver to tight deadlines the production of high quality added value digital content including: information graphics, maps, graphical interactives, multimedia explainers, data journalism, data visualization and other bespoke-format web content 
• To generate ideas for data-driven stories and for how they might be developed and visualised for a variety of platforms 
• To collaborate with reporters, editors, and the fellow team's designer and developer to bring those stories to publication 
• To participate and contribute to the wider Visual Journalism Community, with the Central BBC News Visual Journalism team and the other VJ Languages teams 
• To make the most of data and visual journalism tools and workflows to create content of high editorial and technical standard 
• To be aware of relevant advances in web technology and how they can enhance the team’s output 
• Support fellow African Hub journalists to make the most of the available tools, to improve commissioning and workflows. 
• To represent the Africa hub within the BBC Visual Journalism community 
• To exchange regular notes and ideas with colleagues from the West Africa Languages Visual Journalism team 

Are you the right candidate?

The Ideal Candidate will have the following experience and knowledge: 

Data 

• Numerate – ability to understand spreadsheets and create them in Excel and Google Drive for stories  data sharing 
• Knowledge of data sources and FOI procedure, if relevant, as it pertains to your region 
• A strong grasp of how to clean and query data 
• A good understanding of statistics and statistical analysis 

Production 

• Be able to use basic design software (like Photoshop) to make composite images as well as create and update and create basic templates for static content for social media – whichever platforms are most relevant 
• Good visual awareness and web production experience 
• Experience of visualising data and using visualisation tools 
• Demonstrable experience of working to tight deadlines 
• Also desirable knowledge, skills and experience 
• Digital mapping skills to produce maps for digital outlets (like use of Q-GIS to create heatmaps and pointmaps for output – which can be edited by design and shared with broadcast, CartoDB) 
• Knowledge of advanced features in Excel like pivot tables 
• Knowledge of Structured Query Language (SQL) and of script languages such as Python and/ or R to query databases 
• Knowledge of data visualisation tools such as Tableau, Refine, Flourish (or similar) 
• Knowledge of scripting data processing languages like R 
• Experience of video production and motion graphics software (like Final Cut Pro and After Effects) to create simple explainer videos and animations 
• Experience in the production of long form digital features (like http://goo.gl/GHdurD), with tools like Shorthand or similar 
• Experience of negotiating with public officials for data and open records 
• Experience of gathering information via Freedom of Information requests