US Data Journalist

Financial Times•Washington DC, NY

15h•Hybrid

About The Position

The Financial Times is seeking an experienced Data Journalist to cover US national news, with a specific focus on the 2026 midterm elections. This is a fixed-term role until December 31, 2026. The journalist will collaborate with US-based news editors and correspondents across North America, as well as international colleagues. The role involves delivering compelling journalism on US electoral politics, campaign finance, and public policy, and their intersections with global trade, international relations, economics, and financial markets. The successful candidate will work both independently and collaboratively within the Visual & Data Journalism team and with reporters and editors across the FT network, supporting them in applying data-driven methods. The role is open to candidates eligible to work in the US and can be based in Washington DC or New York City. Occasional weekend or flexible working may be required due to the nature of covering fast-moving news.

Requirements

Strong portfolio of work in data journalism, ideally focused on business, finance, economics or politics in North America.
Experience using data journalism or data science techniques to find and tell news stories.
Confidence using R or Python for data sourcing (including web scraping, APIs and large databases), cleaning and analysis.
Excellent communication skills, particularly the ability to explain quantitative analysis work simply to a non-specialist audience.
Passion for continuously learning to keep skills at the forefront of current practice.
Currently eligible to work in the US.

Nice To Haves

Experience of using data visualisation effectively in reporting (though not a graphics-production role).
Experience covering quantitative aspects of US political polling, electoral politics, campaign finance or public policy analysis.
Training in statistics, data science or quantitative social science methods.
Experience building, maintaining or working with pipelines for continuously acquiring and processing data.
Maintaining statistical models.
Experience applying data analysis in economic, business or financial journalism.
Use of machine learning or large language models in a journalism context.
Training and supporting others in data-handling techniques.
Knowledge of working collaboratively on coding projects using version control systems such as Git.
Data analysis work related to political polling and elections, international trade, warfare or uncovering corporate wrongdoing.
Collaborating with data providers, subject specialists, journalists, designers and developers to deliver data-driven stories and data visualisations for a non-specialist audience.
Familiarity with the Flourish data visualisation tool.

Responsibilities

Cover US national news, including the 2026 midterm elections.
Collaborate with US-based news editors and correspondents across North America.
Collaborate with colleagues in London, Hong Kong and beyond.
Deliver compelling journalism on US electoral politics, campaign finance and public policy.
Analyze how these topics intersect with global trade, international relations, economics and financial markets.
Work self-sufficiently and collaborate with the wider Visual & Data Journalism team.
Support reporters and editors across the FT’s network in applying data-driven methods.