Audience Insights Fellow: Data for Local News Growth

The LA Local; Los Angeles (CA); Hybrid; USD 34,000 - 41,000; Part time

Benefits offered by this job

Tech stipend for wifi/cell use

Paid sick leave

Job summary

The Los Angeles Local News Initiative is seeking a Data & Audience Analyst Fellow to help understand audience reach, engagement, and growth opportunities for our journalism. You’ll pull numbers into spreadsheets, create clear charts, and develop decks for editors, audience, and development staff.

This hybrid/remote role requires at least 2 days in the office weekly and up to 20 hours per week. As a nonprofit startup, you’ll contribute to local reporting and revenue insights while collaborating

Qualifications

• 1–4 years of experience working with data in communications, marketing, audience, fundraising, or media context.
• Strong comfort with spreadsheets (Google Sheets or Excel) including sorting, filtering, pivot tables, and basic time-based formulas.
• Experience with at least one web or audience analytics tool (e.g., Google Analytics/GA4, email dashboards, social analytics).
• Curiosity about how audiences find and use local news and serving communities.

Responsibilities

• Collect and organize data from core channels into up‑to‑date spreadsheets.
• Build recurring reports (weekly, monthly, quarterly) tracking users, pageviews, engaged time, reach, newsletters, and membership activity.
• Create Google Sheets dashboards and Google Slides decks translating data into visuals and takeaways for editors and leadership.
• Collaborate with editorial/audience teams to answer practical questions about growth and engagement.
• Support grant reporting and sponsorship pitches with accurate numbers and simple charts.
• Document definitions and workflows to ensure consistent, trustworthy numbers.

Skills

Spreadsheet proficiency

Data storytelling

SQL or other query language

Web analytics experience

Tools

Google Analytics/GA4

Excel/Sheets dashboards

Job description

We’re looking for a Data & Audience Analyst Fellow to help our growing newsroom understand who we’re reaching, how people engage with our journalism, and where we have opportunities to grow audience and revenue. This role is highly collaborative and practical: you’ll spend much of your time pulling numbers into spreadsheets, turning them into clear charts and decks, and helping editors, audience and development staff make sense of what’s working. This fellowship is a hybrid/remote position with a minimum of 2 days in office per week, and a minimum of 20 hours per week.This is a part-time, 9-month opportunity.

The Organization

The Los Angeles Local News Initiative is a nonprofit startup dedicated to revitalizing local journalism in Los Angeles. We’re building a new model for community-focused news that connects neighborhood-level reporting with broader regional issues. Our approach combines dedicated community newsrooms with a central hub that amplifies local stories, identifies cross-community trends, and produces region-wide coverage that matters to all Angelenos.

Our values

Free, Independent Local Press: We believe all Angelenos deserve to have a source of unbiased information that equips them to thrive in their daily lives. Our work will meet high journalism standards, be independent, non-partisan, and free to access. We’ll prioritize reaching as many Angelenos as possible, in the most effective ways possible.

Community-first: We center the needs of local communities, with an ultimate goal to strengthen communities and make LA work better for Angelenos. Journalism should be focused on serving people most affected by the subject matter, and equipping them to take action.

Equity & Inclusion: We need a representative, equitable, and inclusive local press. Newsrooms should be representative of the communities they cover, shift narratives to be centered on community perspectives, and provide pathways into newsgathering for residents.

Trust: We believe that building trust must be a core principle of our journalism. As a baseline, the journalism we support must be accurate, independent, unbiased, non-partisan, and a trusted source of shared facts by the communities we serve.

Key responsibilities

• Collect and organize data from core channels (website analytics, newsletters, social platforms, and basic revenue/membership reports) into clean, up‑to‑date spreadsheets.
• Build simple but reliable recurring reports (weekly, monthly, quarterly) that track key metrics like users, pageviews, engaged time, social reach, newsletter performance, and membership or donor activity.
• Create Google Sheets dashboards and Google Slides decks that translate data into clear visuals and takeaways for editors, leadership, board, and funders.
• Partner with editorial and audience teams to answer practical questions such as: Which beats or neighborhoods are growing? Which story formats drive loyalty? What times or channels work best for key audiences?
• Support grant writing, funder reports, and sponsorship/membership pitches with accurate numbers, simple charts, and short written summaries of performance and impact.
• Maintain basic benchmarks and targets (e.g., “typical” story performance, newsletter averages) and flag when content or campaigns significantly over‑ or under‑perform.
• Document simple definitions and workflows (how we count users, how we tag stories, how we track campaigns) so the organization is working from consistent numbers.
• Help colleagues interpret metrics responsibly, including explaining data gaps, sample sizes, and why “more clicks” is not the only measure of success.
• Take on ad‑hoc questions and small special projects (e.g., a one‑off campaign report, a neighborhood‑specific audience snapshot, or a pre/post analysis for a big editorial series).

Core metrics you’ll work with

• You don’t need to be an engineer; you do need to be comfortable living in Sheets and charts.
• Social: impressions, reach, engagements, link clicks to our site.
• Newsletters: list size, growth, open and click rates, unsubscribes.
• Revenue/membership (as available): number of active members/donors, new vs. returning, campaign performance.

Qualifications

• 1–4 years of experience working with data in communications, marketing, audience, fundraising, or media context (newsroom experience is a plus).
• Strong comfort with spreadsheets (Google Sheets or Excel), including sorting, filtering, pivot tables, and basic formulas for comparisons over time (week‑over‑week, month‑over‑month, year‑over‑year).
• Experience working with at least one web or audience analytics tool (e.g., Google Analytics/GA4, email service provider dashboards, or social media analytics).
• Curiosity about how audiences find and use local news, and an interest in experimenting with ways to better serve communities that are often overlooked.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills; comfortable working across editorial, audience, development/fundraising, and leadership.
• Alignment with our mission and values, and a commitment to using data in ways that respect our communities.
• Experience with SQL or another query language.

Compensation and Benefits

This opportunity is a temporary, part-time, 9-month fellowship. The wage for this position is $25.00 – $30.00 per hour, commensurate with education and experience. Temporary employees earn paid sick leave at a rate of 1 hour for every 30 hours worked up to 48 hours of paid sick leave per year. Fellows also receive a monthly tech stipend of $40 for wifi and cell phone use.

We’re committed to building an inclusive organization that represents the people and communities we serve. We encourage members of traditionally underrepresented communities to apply, including women, Black, Latinx, Asian American, and Indigenous people, veterans, LGBTQ+ people and people with disabilities. The Los Angeles Local News Initiative is dedicated to equal employment opportunities for all applicants and employees. We encourage people of all races, colors, national origins, ancestries, creeds, religions, genders, ages, disabilities, veteran status, sexual orientations, and marital statuses to apply.