WSJ graphics reporter Chiwaya joins NBC News

David Firestone, managing editor for NBC News Digital, sent out the below note to staff this week:

We’re very pleased to announce the arrival of two talented journalists who will help transform how NBC News Digital uses data in its reporting.

Joe Murphy will be Digital’s data journalism editor. Until recently Joe led the interactive development team at the New York Daily News, where he helped develop some very cool projects like the opioid graveyard on Staten Island, a detailed map of all the mass shootings since Sandy Hook, and memorably for many people on our staff, the daily Mets Misery Index. Prior to that, Joe did similar online projects at the Denver Post and the Winston-Salem Journal.

Our data journalism reporter will be Nigel Chiwaya, a graphics reporter at the Wall Street Journal and prior to that at DNAinfo, where he worked with Julie and Dart. Among Nigel’s most outstanding projects have been a map that shows where average New Yorkers can find a studio apartment, the Mayoral Excuse Machine that allowed readers to make use of many of Di Blasio’s favorite explanations for being late, and the project he is most proud of: a map that showed the high level of segregation in New York City’s public schools, which won an Ippie award for best multi-media package. (Unfortunately, when DNAnfo folded, so did the online links to some of these projects.)

Joe and Nigel will look for and report stories that make strong use of data, and will tell those stories in creative visual ways that utilize the latest online tools. In many cases they will write and illustrate these stories on their own; in others, they will work with other reporters and editors to help them add data and rigor to their work.

Both start today, and will be in the newsroom after their orientation. Please introduce yourselves and make them feel welcome.

David