Big Local News, a program of Stanford University’s Journalism and Democracy Initiative, is excited to welcome journalists Kim Bui, Sarah Cohen and Gerald Rich to our team. Big Local News collects local data to discover the regional or national patterns that will yield stories with impact. We go after data sets that are hard to obtain because they’re kept in disparate, scattered locations by multiple jurisdictions. We work with newsrooms to process, analyze and archive the data they collect and we provide mentoring and training with partner newsrooms. This past year, two of the projects we were involved with were Pulitzer finalists.

With the addition of these exceptional journalists, we will enhance our support to local news organizations as they produce data-driven accountability journalism.

Kim Bui, Sarah Cohen and Gerald Rich

Kim Bui is serving as a project manager for Big Local News’ Data+ members. Data+ is a membership that allows journalists and newsrooms access to large databases and enhanced coaching and mentorship. Kim is a recent John S. Knight Fellow, following her leadership roles in local and national news organizations including The Arizona Republic and NowThis.

Sarah Cohen is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and editor who specializes in data analysis for investigative stories. She has retired from fulltime work and her most recent post as Knight Chair of Data Journalism at ASU. She will be working with Big Local News in a mentorship and training role with local journalists, including the New York Times Investigative Reporting Fellowship.

“Big Local is addressing a desperate need among local reporters for help in reporting important and difficult stories,” Cohen said. “And I’m thrilled for the opportunity to contribute.”

Gerald Rich comes to Big Local News from the Associated Press and previous work at other organizations including The Atlantic, and Axios, where he has spearheaded teams to deliver innovative tools for live election coverage and award-winning visual narratives. He is focusing his attention on Big Local News’ work with the Community Law Enforcement Accountability Network, and in 2025, will also help shepherd work on Agenda Watch and other data automations and AI projects.

Big Local News is hiring

Big Local News is also hiring another engineer/developer. This role will be a critical part of our efforts to envision and create new data offerings and platforms to support local news. If you are interested, please apply here.

Here is more detail about the role.

The position is a two-year fixed term with possibility of renewal. It is located in the journalism program at Stanford and entails collecting, cleaning and analyzing data in collaboration with newsrooms and also working with students on related projects. The role is in-person/hybrid preferred, with remote optional.

Expectations for this role include:

  • Helping to maintain and expand our platforms, along with our broader data gathering and alerting operations
  • A demonstrated ability to create and manage large-scale data and document gathering pipelines
  • Applying software best practices, including team-based version control strategies and automated code deployment
  • Managing cloud infrastructure and managing community contributions to open-source projects
  • Maintaining full-stack web applications, with a focus on Python server-side and React/Svelte on the front-end
  • The ability to collaborate effectively with teammates and external news partners, including one-on-one mentoring.
  • A desire to learn about and apply computational techniques (including but not limited to generative AI solutions) to improve our platforms, data pipelines and alerting systems
  • Experience with any of the following preferred qualifications is a plus:
  • Fluency in a high-level programming language, including project experience developing in Python
  • Experience with the git distributed version control system
  • Open-source software development or contribution.
  • Distributed computing, container technologies, or cloud development
  • Data Visualization experience, especially using D3 UI/UX and general web design experience
  • JavaScript and modern web-based UI frameworks such as React, Svelte or Vue
  • Experience developing and deploying a software project
  • Demonstrated ability to work both independently and as part of a team
  • Experience with machine learning, artificial intelligence and generative AI

Our biglocalnews.org platform allows journalists – whether freelancers, reporters from one company or collaborators across multiple news organizations – to share data and work together as they report out stories. Our work is designed to be journalist-driven and transformative, to help find solutions for local newsrooms’ ability to produce accountability journalism — the type of journalism that can shift policy and law and create impact.

You can read more about our work here and here.

Apply for the job here, and if you have questions, feel free to reach out to Big Local News Co-Director Serdar Tumgoren at [email protected].

About Big Local News

From its base at Stanford University, Big Local News gathers data, builds tools and collaborates with reporters to produce journalism that makes an impact. Its website at biglocalnews.org offers a free archiving service for journalists to store and share data.

Learn more by visiting our About page.