USA Today’s Overberg joins WSJ investigations team

Rob Barry, the co-chair of data journalism projects at The Wall Street Journal, sent the following staff hire announcement out on Wednesday:

Please welcome Paul Overberg, who joins The Wall Street Journal’s investigative team this week from his longtime post as data editor at USA Today. His news- and data-gathering expertise is among the broadest in the business, in topics ranging from demographics to crime to economics.

With his unflappable demeanor, Paul will bolster the newsroom’s ability to fuse enterprise stories with demographic and economic data from obvious sources like the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Census and the Federal Reserve, and also from those you’ve never heard of, like LEHD, SIPP, ATUS, NLSY and CFS. In fact, we bet you can’t find a source of demographic data Paul hasn’t mined.

In 2013, Paul helped lead a project on mass killings called Behind the Bloodshed, contributing data analysis and research, as well as much of the writing. The analysis debunked many of the myths about mass killers and their victims. Last year, he used a proprietary metric in the Changing Face of America to analyze the growth in racial diversity across the country. The series, which included demographic projections to 2060, offered nationwide insight into the impact of diversity on local populations.

Paul is an active member of Investigative Reporters and Editors and has for years instructed journalists in the art of deciphering U.S. Census data releases. He has also taught data journalism at American University. A Rutgers University graduate, Paul will be working in Washington, D.C. and will report to Rob Barry and Tom McGinty.