Data Journalist Fellow

Posted On: January 5, 2018

Fellowship

Media Organization: United States Department of Transportation

Company Description

As the independent statistical agency within the Department of Transportation (DOT), the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) is a politically objective supplier of trusted and statistically sound baseline, contextual, and trend information used to shape transportation policy, investments, and research across the U.S. and abroad.

BTS is the preeminent source of statistics on commercial aviation, multimodal freight, and transportation economics.

The Bureau’s National Transportation Library is the permanent, publicly accessible home for research publications from throughout the transportation community, the gateway to all DOT data, and the help line for the Congress, researchers, and the public for information about transportation.

The BTS Director is by law the senior advisor to the Secretary on data and statistics.

Job Description

Are you ready to bring transformative change to Federal information production and distribution techniques? Here is a chance to influence and improve the effectiveness of data at the national level by simplifying complex problems with data and visuals that convey information in new, understandable ways. Take an appointment with our team as we lead the creation of new national transportation data information products in the era of big data, and where you build new stories about transportation and implement innovative analysis through data journalism.

The future of transportation datasets holds great promise as well as new challenges. The democratization of data and omnipresence of technology in transportation has created the opportunity for vast new empirical data resources with profound impacts on data velocity, volume and bias. These changes push us, as storytellers, journalists, analysts and statisticians, to rethink our relationship with data. In this 24 hour a day instantaneous information environment, the pressure to deliver fresh data stories is relentless. A constant call to balance the decennial, quinquennial or even annual data releases with near real time data and analysis exists for many data providers. Working in coordination with our Director of Public Affairs and our lead Visual Information Specialist, you will use data journalism to explore opportunities for advancing data and statistical information and you will build new data stories and information products for Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) to publish to the world.

You will be using, adapting and transforming data and data analysis to provide new stories about transportation. You will craft aviation, economic, freight, passenger, vehicle, and ship data into meaningful information for the public. You will learn to design and build innovative, new stories that capture emerging areas of transportation.

You will have the opportunity to develop close working relationships with other U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) offices, and other Federal agencies that maintain data and analytical capabilities, which can aid in the understanding of the transportation industry. You will participate in inter-agency efforts relating to the development and improvement of information production and distribution, and you will conduct research on existing and emerging technologies, processes and approaches that can be used to enhance the storytelling of transportation and then implement this research with new products and techniques.

Who are we? We are the U.S. Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) Office of Spatial Analysis and Visualization (OSAV). The BTS is the Principal Federal Statistical Agency that provides objective, comprehensive, and relevant information on the extent and use of the Nation’s transportation system, how well the system performs, and the effects of the system on society and the environment. BTS is recognized as the pre-eminent source of airline data as well as freight data for the United States.

To Apply

Please fill out application at https://www.zintellect.com/Posting/Details/3888