Fellow, Election Analytics at The New York Times in New York, NY

Job description

The mission of The New York Times is to seek the truth and help people understand the world. That means independent journalism is at the heart of all we do as a company. It’s why we have a world-renowned newsroom that sends journalists to report on the ground from nearly 160 countries. It’s why we focus deeply on how our readers will experience our journalism, from print to audio to a world-class digital and app destination. And it’s why our business strategy centers on making journalism so good that it’s worth paying for. Join the 2027 New York Times Fellowship class as an elections analyst in New York. As an elections analytics fellow, you will contribute to The Times’s data-driven coverage of American elections. You will be part of the Election Analytics team, which produces The New York Times/Siena University Poll, the live election-night forecast known as The Needle and our polling tracker, in addition to stories that explore voter decisions and analyze past elections. Election Analytics is an interdisciplinary team of reporters, editors, developers and statisticians. You should have experience working in one of these areas and be excited to learn about the others. You will use your knowledge of elections and voting to contribute to stories, graphics and our longer-term projects. The exact form of this role will depend on your background. Perhaps you are more comfortable writing than coding and want to deepen your technical skills to more easily answer questions yourself. Or perhaps you bring a background as a developer or statistician and want to work on your ability to communicate your ideas in words. This is an in-office position and includes regular attendance in the office four days each week. There may be some flexibility to work remotely per your departmental guidance. You may be required to work some nights, weekends and holidays as needed. Responsibilities: Contribute original analyses of polls, voter registration trends and recent election results for articles or graphics Increase the team’s understanding of elections through data collection, scraping, statistical analysis and reporting Participate in training and social programs designed for the fellowship Collaborate with colleagues across the newsroom Demonstrate support and understanding of our value of journalistic independence and a strong commitment to our mission to seek the truth and help people understand the world Basic Qualifications: No more than five years of full-time, professional journalism experience, excluding internships A deep and demonstrated understanding of American elections Experience working with data Expertise in at least one of the team’s focus areas: Data-driven reporting, including reporting clips or blog posts that demonstrate analytical findings meant for a broad audience Statistics, including experience developing statistical models in R or Python Development, including proficiency in R or Python, experience working with cloud computing providers and experience building productionized web applications Preferred Qualifications : Experience writing news stories, such as for a college newspaper To apply, upload a résumé, cover letter and an essay of no more than 500 words on a trend in American politics that you are watching. Also include links to one to three examples of nonacademic elections analysis you have performed. These can include social media threads, Substack posts or unpublished works. The application will prompt you when to upload materials. Applications that fail to include any of these materials or follow these instructions will not be considered. You must be authorized to work in the United States. We will not sponsor work visas for the fellowship, but we will consider applicants with valid work authorization or a valid student visa that can be extended with Optional Practical Training. You may apply to only one fellowship position per year. For instance, if you apply as an elections analyst, you should not apply fo