Data and Audience Analyst Fellowship

The Role

We’re looking for a Data and 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.

The Organization

The LA Local 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.

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.

• Website: users, pageviews, sessions, top pages, basic engagement (time on page, bounce/engagement rate).
• 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.

Reporting structure

• Reports to: Head of Audience and Membership
• Works closely with: Editors, audience and social staff, development/fundraising team, and organizational leadership.

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.