Jennifer Peebles

Journalist in Atlanta, Ga.

Jennifer PeeblesData specialist at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I (heart) public records.

  • Email: jennifer.peebles@ajc.com
  • Website: ajc.com staff page
  • Phone: (W) (404) 526-5923 | (C) (281) 656-1681
  • Work mail: 223 Perimeter Center Parkway NE, Atlanta GA 30346
  • PGP: Public key at this link | Fingerprint: 047 384 9F2 6C9 9C8 8F6 0CD F86 1EB 008 CEE D5B A185
  • Keybase.io: jpeebles

Professional Profile

I help reporters find and tell stories in data (and sometimes documents). Tips, documents and data always welcome. For a more extensive resume, check out my LinkedIn profile.

Skills

  • Seasoned line editor and newsroom team leader
  • Using state and federal freedom of information laws
  • Using data to find and report stories
  • Using GIS mapping to find and report stories
  • Data visualization
  • Making interactive maps using tools including Google Maps and TileMill/MapBox
  • Podcasting
  • Managing multiplatform content production (web, print, tablet)
  • Using alternative storytelling methods
  • Improving content SEO
  • Using social media to engage readers and increase traffic
  • Hosting training Webinars on open government

Work Experience

Newsroom Data Specialist

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

  • Period: 2015-present
  • Supervisor: Scott Peacocke

Serve the newsroom with its data needs

  • Find and obtain data and documents for stories
  • Crunch numbers
  • Clean up data
  • Create databases as needed
  • Create simple interactives with Tableau Public, Fusion Tables, CartoDB

Digital Editor

Washington Examiner

Supervise digital production for an all-politics news website doing roughly 3.5 million uniques per month.

  • Helped lead transformation of the Examiner from a six-day-a-week tabloid local paper to an all-politics news website in 2013
  • Manage editors, web producers, video journalists and reporters
  • Help direct coverage and coordinate production and publication of content from more than two dozen regular staff contributors
  • Pushed organization to use more data visualizations, charticles, infographics, interactive maps and multimedia, including its first podcasts and narrated slideshows
  • Supervise publication on web (desktop and mobile), production of tablet editions
  • Edit content and supervise team of producers/editors to ensure high standards and proper quality control
  • Liaise with corporate web development and IT staff to add functionality and features to site and troubleshoot problems
  • Helped lead sitewide improvements in SEO that helped in doubling the percentage of overall site traffic from search

Deputy Editor

Texas Watchdog

  • Produced original enterprise and watchdog journalism that won one national award and multiple statewide awards
  • Supervised accountability coverage of the Houston school system and edited my colleagues' work, including a series on insider contracts going to school board members' friends
  • Used databases and computer records to find stories
  • Helped break story that school district was planning to give a $600k no-bid contract to a school board member's friend (after which the contract idea quietly died)
  • In-house expert on using freedom of information laws
  • Led formation of our social media presence and helped build up our Twitter following to 3k+
  • Produced GIS maps to find stories, including mapping wreck data to show wreck "hot spots" in Houston and San Antonio
  • Produced interactive Google Maps, including a map mashup of Texas legislators' ethics forms that won a national award
  • Created interactive social network charts to show connections between players in insider deals in local government
  • Hosted podcast on open government issues
  • Frequently hosted and co-hosted monthly Webinar on using open government laws
  • Counseled journalists, citizen-journalists and others across Texas about using freedom of information laws to access public information

Reporter, editor

The Tennessean

I was proud to work at Nashville's morning daily for 14 years.

  • Supervised a team of five reporters covering local, state and federal government (2005-08)
  • Oversaw newspaper's 2005 investigation that led to massive changes in the Tennessee Highway Patrol
  • Oversaw newspaper's investigation into sexual harassment in state government, which led to changes in how the state deals with harassment cases
  • Helped break story that led to the state legislature granting public access to a searchable database of legislative votes
  • Used GIS mapping to show "hot spots" of home foreclosures and car thefts in the Nashville area
  • Helped coordinate breaking coverage of the 2005 Operation Tennessee Waltz bribery sting arrests
  • First person in the newsroom on Twitter and started the first news-side blog
  • Stints as night/weekend regional editor, then state editor
  • Supervised three reporters embedded with the Army's 101st Airborne Division (two did stints in Iraq and one in Afghanistan)
  • Stints as "storm team" editor (for severe weather and major breaking news) and 1A Sunday digest editor
  • Started as a summer intern, left when I was government and politics team leader

Education & Training

Professional training

Fellow, July 2011 multimedia workshop, Knight Digital Media Center at the University of California-Berkeley; National Institute for Computer Assisted Reporting mapping boot camp, 2007; Analyst's Notebook Level 1 class, i2, Tyson's Corner, Va., 2009; National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting CAR boot camp, 2001; Poynter Institute newspaper reporting and writing seminar, 2000.

Vanderbilt University

Bachelor of Arts degree in history

Editor of student newspaper, The Vanderbilt Hustler; Richard A. Geyer Jr. Award winner (for student journalists); Charles Forrest Alexander Award winner (for student journalists); McTyeire Hall resident (German hall); McGill Project resident.

Awards & Portfolio

Awards

Selected Work