ProPublica’s Data Journalism: How Multidisciplinary Teams and Hybrid Profiles Create Impactful Data Stories

Despite growing interest in the emergence of technologies journalistic practices, especially from production perspective, there is still very little research on organizational structures and professional culture relation to deployment these technologies. Drawing six interviews observation staff meetings, this study aims explore nuances behind roles data journalists how relate structural aspects news organizations. The focuses case ProPublica, a organization internationally renowned for its global excellence stories. This work considers boundary-making context journalism new industry produce hybrid ethnography based qualitative collected immediately before Covid-19 pandemic hit United States. findings reveal importance profiles at ProPublica. While some have had expand their knowledge learn more about areas, such as coding design, non-journalistic professionals develop writing skills, blurring traditional boundaries forms an important aspect ProPublica’s culture. structure organization, divided into two teams engaged cross-sector activities, helps promote skills collaboration with other journalists, which also serves mitigate any individual lack experience certain topics. article concludes by suggesting that has broader implications development newsroom, discusses limitations can arise increasing overlap between roles.