Data Journalism Trainer (India Based)

Who We Are

Thibi is a data and design consultancy that specialises in building interactive web-based data tools and visualizations. Our team has been active in Southeast Asia’s civic tech and open data community for many years, with extensive experience in data visualization, data-driven web development, and data literacy training. We have worked with organizations such as Thomson Reuters Foundation, Internews, Open Knowledge Foundation, and The Asia Foundation. Thibi is currently growing into a remote team of designers, developers and data experts based remotely across Southeast Asia.

The Project

Thibi and the Earth Journalism Network are offering an intensive multi-month training program to selected Indian journalists to produce in-depth data-driven journalism on critical environmental issues. The course, which will run in 2024, will be divided into three parts: one month of Fundamentals of Data Journalism online learning, one month of Intermediate Data Journalism online learning, and a two-month Fellowship with a story production stipend. 

Our project team consists of data journalism trainers and data analysts who will be preparing and delivering the training materials, as well as designers and developers who will work with the participants to co-create their data stories. We anticipate the stories co-created with the participants will be published in renowned international and Indian media outlets.

Your Role

• Localisation of the Internews Data Journalism Curriculum - You will be part of a training team of five data specialists who will be localizing and delivering the Internews Data Journalism Curriculum. Tasks may include developing training strategies, initiatives, and testing and reviewing available materials.
• Outreach to Media Houses for Participant Recruitment - Outreach may include individually contacting and maintaining relationships with journalists with a track record of environmental reporting, meeting with their editors, explaining the benefits of the program, and working with editors at media houses during the program.  
• Hybrid Delivery of the Data Journalism Curriculum - The training will be delivered to a cohort of 20-25 journalists both on and offline. You will be expected to either support or lead the delivery, review participants’ performance and learning as well as facilitate breakout sessions, and guide groups through the collaborative production of assigned stories. 
• Mentoring Trainees through Story Pitching and Production - You will be a crucial team member in mentoring participants through a systematic process for creating data journalism, as well as story pitching and the production of selected stories.

Must Have Skills

• Extensive experience producing long-form journalism - The Thibi team has a lot of data experience but we will rely on you to guide us through the world of narrative journalism in India and the region, especially around environmental issues. 
• Familiarity with data or investigative journalism methods - We follow an inquiry-based approach to teaching data journalism so you must be comfortable with developing a hypothesis for an investigation and following a transparent, defensible research process to investigate the story. We are open to candidates from any educational or professional background, but relevant experience in academia, media, or think tanks would be very beneficial.
• Experience teaching and mentoring  - The most important outcome of the program is journalists with the ability to return to their newsrooms and apply what they have learned to produce regular data-driven accountability reporting. Your experience in mentoring other journalists will be crucial to achieving this result. 
• Connections with Indian media organizations - This role involves reaching out to journalists and editors across the Indian media landscape and convincing them that environmental data journalism is a good investment of their time and resources. 
• Intermediate data skills – As you will be playing an essential role in developing data-driven content, a good grasp of data wrangling and analysis in spreadsheet software (or more advanced tools) is a must.
• Interpersonal skills – You’re friendly, empathetic, and genuinely willing to help people with their problems. You’re an expert listener who tends to understand where people are coming from.
• Communication skills – You express yourself clearly and concisely. You can choose the right language in the right context to explain complicated things in simple ways. Since you will be reaching out to journalists in Indian newsrooms, both written and spoken communication skills will be crucial.
• Language skills – You demonstrate native fluency (both spoken and written) in English and preferably Hindi and other ethnic languages in India.

Nice to Have Skills

• Advanced investigative or data journalism skills – If you have worked as a full-time investigative or data journalist or graduated from an investigative or data journalism program, we are happy to integrate your methodology into our curriculum.
• Environmental journalism expertise - The course will focus on selected environmental issues that the Indian public would better understand through data journalism so any special knowledge of climate, biodiversity, food security, etc. will be an asset. 
• Editorial experience – The ability to manage multiple journalists working simultaneously on different datasets and different stories will be an asset in this role.
• Multimedia storytelling experience - We expect participants to come from a range of media - print, online, television, radio, podcasting - so the more experience you have producing content across different platforms, the better. 
• Interactive storytelling experience - If you have worked as part of a team to produce multimedia content into a compelling story package, let us know. 
• Advanced data analysis skills – Familiarity with performing data analysis in SQL, R, or Python, and no-code data visualization tools such as Datawrapper and Flourish is not necessary but will be helpful.

The Culture

Taking initiative – We are self-starters. Our team members take responsibility and act on initiative instead of waiting for instructions.‍

Broad interests – We’re a tech company, but our team members entertain a wide range of interests from poetry and surfing to lacquerware and art history. We deeply value people with interests beyond technology.

‍Diversity – We welcome and cherish teammates and collaborators who represent a variety of backgrounds and life experiences, be it culture, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or religion.

The Details

This is a fully remote, full-time position. It is for a ten-month contract with the possibility of an extension.

Thibi is an equal-opportunity employer. We do not discriminate against any employee or job applicant based on race, color, gender, national origin, age, religion, creed, disability, or sexual orientation.

Interested? Please apply via this link: https://bit.ly/thibi-work-application. For full consideration, please apply by November 28, 2023.