Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. USA TODAY Co., Inc. is a diversified media company dedicated to empowering communities. They are seeking a News Data Automation & AI Workflow Lead to design, build, and scale data-driven journalism, combining technical execution with leadership to enhance newsroom capabilities.
Responsibilities
- Build, maintain, and improve data automation pipelines, scrapers, APIs, and AI‑assisted workflows that support high‑value newsroom use cases
- Identify, acquire, and structure high‑impact datasets and signals that can drive timely, differentiated coverage across local markets
- Design and implement AI‑enabled tools and templates that help journalists move faster while maintaining high editorial standards
- Work directly with editorial leaders, reporters, and automation teams to translate newsroom needs into technical solutions
- Prototype, test, and refine new automation and AI workflows, balancing speed, reliability, and editorial usefulness
- Troubleshoot automation, data, or tool issues as they arise, providing clarity and guidance to partners across the newsroom
- Help evaluate existing automation efforts and recommend which should be expanded, refined, redesigned, or retired based on value and impact
- Develop newsroom‑ready outputs that may include story drafts, alerts, tip sheets, reporting leads, dashboards, or other editorial tools, depending on the use case
- Mentor and support journalists and teammates using automation and AI tools, helping raise overall technical fluency and confidence
- Clearly document workflows and systems so they are understandable, resilient, and scalable beyond a single owner
- Stay current on developments in AI, data automation, and newsroom technology, and help envision future use cases that responsibly support journalism
Skills
- Bachelor's degree in journalism, communications, data science, computer science or a related field. Equivalent work experience welcomed
- 3-5 years of experience in journalism, data journalism, newsroom automation, computational journalism, software development, or a closely related field
- Strong technical skills, including experience with Python, scraping, APIs, data cleaning, and workflow automation
- Demonstrated ability to work with messy, real-world data and turn it into reliable, usable systems
- Strong news judgment and a clear understanding of what makes a local data signal genuinely reportable, useful and differentiated
- Familiarity with AI tools and the broader generative AI landscape, including benefits, risks, and responsible use in journalism
- Strong communication skills, including the ability to document technical processes and explain them to non-technical partners
- Proven ability to manage multiple projects and priorities in a deadline-driven environment
- Experience in a local newsroom or in work serving multiple local markets
- Experience building or maintaining automated journalism workflows end-to-end
- Familiarity with CMS workflows and digital publishing operations
- Experience designing alerts, triggers or threshold-based systems for editorial use
- Experience working with public records or watchdog-style datasets such as inspections, enforcement actions, labor notices, court records, licensure data or government records
- Experience using AI tools to support data processing, classification, summarization, or workflow efficiency
Benefits
- Variable compensation is not reflected in these figures and based on the role, may be applicable.
- USA TODAY Co., Inc. will provide applicants who require a reasonable accommodation, as a result of an applicant’s disability or religion, to complete this employment application and/or any other process in connection with an individuals’ application for employment with USA TODAY Co., Inc. Applicants who require such accommodation should contact USA TODAY Co., Inc.’s Recruitment Department at [email protected].
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