Bloomberg hires Cox as executive editor of data journalism

To all in Investigations, the Data Desk, Data Visualization and Visual Media —

I am delighted to announce that Amanda Cox will join us in the new role of Executive Editor for Data Journalism. As many of you know, Amanda is a preeminent practitioner in the field of data-driven reporting. She most recently led special data projects at USAFacts, the non-profit founded by Steve Ballmer. Before that she spent 16 years at the New York Times, where she ran The Upshot section and rose to become the Data Editor for the wider newsroom. Along the way, Amanda and her teams amassed a National Design Award, a Malofiej award, the Excellence in Statistical Reporting prize from the American Statistical Association, and four Gerald Loeb awards, from 2013 to 2017.

Before she joined the Times, Amanda worked as a research assistant at the Federal Reserve Board in D.C. She earned her bachelor’s degree in economics from St. Olaf College and her master’s in statistics from the University of Washington.

In her new position at Bloomberg, Amanda will guide our data journalism efforts globally, and will spearhead our plan to significantly build out our data-reporting capabilities across the newsroom. She will directly manage two teams: the Data Desk, overseen by team leader David Ingold, and the Data Investigations squad, under team leader Jason Grotto. Amanda will drive ambitious, groundbreaking investigative projects and will also expand the Data Desk so we have more top-tier experts across the globe who can work with all teams and platforms to seize data-reporting opportunities, both short-term and longer-term. Amanda will work closely with our training group on best practices as we continue to ramp up data skills on multiple teams. And Amanda and her teams will be resources for evaluating the rigor and accuracy of our coding and data analyses.

As John Micklethwait has noted, data journalism must be — and increasingly is — at the center of what we do as a news organization. We’ve produced outstanding, illuminating work that we should all be proud of. But there is much more we can do — not least by mining our own vast trove of data. Amanda brings exceptional experience, aptitude and journalistic drive to this challenge. As our data journalism thought-leader, she’ll help us all raise the bar.

Amanda will report to me and be based in New York. Please stop by to say hello. She starts on Monday.

— Otis