Digital News Apps Reporter

Job Description

OVERVIEW

Across our organization, we’re building a workplace where collaboration is essential, diverse voices are heard, and inclusion is the key to our success.

The NPR Graphics/News Apps team is looking for a civic-minded graphics reporter to join our team.

You will pitch and report original visual stories; create information graphics, data visualizations and special story presentations; and collaborate with colleagues across NPR and our network of member stations — in line with our mission of creating a more informed public
Our team is composed of developers, designers and data editors. We work closely with various journalists and storytelling units around the NPR organization, including photographers and video journalists, beat reporters and show producers, copy editors, digital editors and engagement editors.

You will have to work quickly in a dynamic environment. Crafting accurate, informative visual projects on deadline can be difficult, and there's no room for cruft and little margin for error. You will encounter new problems every day and may wear many hats, as a designer, reporter, graphics editor, data wrangler, front end web developer, cartographer, etc.

RESPONSIBILITIES
• Strong news judgement and a sense for what makes a good visual story that serves the audience
• Strong communication skills to coordinate with colleagues across the newsroom, understand quickly-changing news situations and explain complex information to diverse audiences
• A team player willing to collaborate in an open environment, working with people across the newsroom with a variety of skill sets and areas of expertise
• Demonstrated initiative and self-starting skills; ability to work independently
• Sincere curiosity, attention to detail and enthusiasm for making things
• A genuine and friendly disposition
• Produce information graphics, data visualizations and other visual presentations that help our audience understand issues in the news
• Research, pitch and report original stories
• Work closely with individual story producers, editors and other teammates to identify opportunities for visual storytelling and data visualization
• Assess what work realistically can be executed in the time available and meet agreed-upon deadlines
• Uphold and extend existing design standards for NPR.org graphics and editorial projects
• Document your work for teammates, newsroom colleagues and/or external audiences, as relevant
• Coach other team members, articulating story, design and code suggestions in a helpful and supportive way
• Help maintain and extend the team’s technical infrastructure

QUALIFICATIONS
• EDUCATION:
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent work experience
• Three or more years of experience in news design (or a similar field)

REQUIRED SKILLS
• Solid news judgment and the ability to think in terms of the information needs of the audience
• Fluency in JavaScript, HTML5 and CSS3, including responsive web design techniques
• Proven success implementing complex designs in HTML/CSS
• Demonstrated experience applying user-centered design thinking to editorial work.
• Experience with Adobe Creative Suite, Sketch or other design/visual prototyping software

PREFERRED SKILLS
• Experience with GIS/mapping software such as ArcMap or QGIS
• Familiarity with data analysis techniques, especially in command-line or scriptable environments like Jupyter Notebook
• Experience working with the Git version control system
• Experience working on Agile software teams
• Familiarity with Amazon Web Services and provisioning AWS resources using the console, CLI and API

Jobcode: Reference SBJ-rjz282-3-131-13-194-42 in your application.