Freelance Deputy Editor

WE’RE HIRING: Deputy Editor / Production Lead
Beautiful News @ Information is Beautiful

Join our fully remote team and work directly with best-selling author David McCandless on our evidence-based optimism project Beautiful News— positive visual journalism reaching millions worldwide.

You'll research, write, and help produce data stories and graphics about progress and positive change across articles, newsletters, and social/video.
Ideal for someone with an editorial background (journalism, publishing, comms, academia) who moves easily between research, writing, and production.

📍 Freelance · ~3 days/wk · Remote · Flexitime
Applications close Monday 20 July.

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Freelance Deputy Editor / Production Lead – Beautiful News

Information is Beautiful, 3rd Jul 2026

Freelance · Remote · Part-time · Approx. 3 days p/w

We’re looking for an editorial all-rounder to become the day-to-day editorial lead for our evidence-based optimism project Beautiful News while also lightly supporting wider Information is Beautiful projects.

This is a rare opportunity to join the fully remote creative team behind Information is Beautiful and work directly with founder and best-selling author David McCandless on ambitious, unusual and socially-impactful projects.

Initially this is a freelance, part-time role of approximately 3 days per week with scope for additional work during launch periods and other moments.

We work remotely, flexibly and asynchronously. We’re also deliberately low-meeting and high-trust. You must be comfortable managing your own time, priorities and momentum.

About us

Information is Beautiful is an independent data visualisation studio founded in 2009 by writer, author and designer David McCandless. Our mission: to clarify the world’s data, information and knowledge through beautiful, truthful visual graphics and data-stories.  All our visualizations are based on facts. & data: regularly updated, revised and revisioned. Our work has been seen by millions around the world.

Our process is fundamentally journalistic: research-heavy, concept-led and driven by narrative rather than simply data. We aim to be independent, transparent, balanced and evidence-based, helping inform audiences about a wide range of topics.

Beautiful News extends that mission into a more optimistic space — creating data-stories about progress, solutions and positive change around the world. A daily antidote to the doom scroll.

Now we’re looking for a sharp, editorial mind to help lead it…

About the role

You’ll act as a deputy editor and editorial producer for Beautiful News, helping research, shape, publish and amplify our work across multiple formats and platforms.

A single graphic today may become a website article, newsletter feature, social post, short-form video, animation, educational resource or even an interactive experience. Help us think and produce across that entire range of possibilities – and maybe beyond.

You’ll work closely with David and have genuine influence over what gets made, how it’s told and how it reaches our international audience of over one million followers.

What you’ll do

Editorial & Research

• Source, research and fact-check stories, topics and data from diverse spheres
• Gather, clean and organise datasets; quiz experts where necessary
• Write across formats including newsletters, blog posts, social media and web
• Help maintain editorial quality, tone, accuracy and balance
• Support video, animation and short-form content production where required
• Contribute ideas for new stories, formats and experiments

Content & Social

• Adapt and repurpose content across multiple channels and formats
• Help manage editorial calendars and publishing schedules
• Support audience growth, engagement and community building
• Monitor content performance and identify opportunities for improvement
• Help manage multiple project releases simultaneously across Beautiful News and Information is Beautiful

(We have developed automated scheduling tools for social media, so tasks here are more around editorial prepping & finessing)

About you

You’re probably a writer who researches, a researcher who writes, a designer who does data – or maybe storyteller who happens to love numbers and visuals.

You likely come from journalism, publishing, academia, communications, policy, think tanks, content or a similar editorial environment with 3+ years of experience.

Most importantly, you’re curious – an information omnivore with broad interests.

You enjoy moving between subjects, learning quickly and becoming temporarily obsessed with new topics. You have excellent judgement, strong editorial instincts and a good eye for what makes people stop scrolling.

Specifically:

• A versatile and confident writer with excellent English (likely first language)
• Organised, reliable and highly self-directed
• Self-initiating, resourceful and proactive
• Numerate and comfortable working with simple data and spreadsheets
• Technically confident and happy learning new tools & workflows
• Interested in storytelling through information and visual communication
• Someone who thrives working independently in a fully remote environment
• Already familiar with IIB’s work, ethos and aesthetic

Although we’ll always value talent and curiosity over perfectly matching a checklist.

Helpful but not essential

We’re a small multi-skilled team and it’s always a pleasure when people can bring extra talents to the table:

• Familiarity with data visualisation or graphical storytelling (passion counts as much as credentials)
• Proven nous with social media strategy or audience growth
• Basic video or motion content skills
• Skilled with Adobe tools such as Illustrator or Photoshop
• AI-savvy – curious about or already experimenting with AI in your workflow
• Attended one of our workshops – so you already have a sense of our process

How we work

• Fully remote and globally distributed
• Flexible hours and asynchronous collaboration
• Low to no-meetings
• High trust and high autonomy

If you love ideas, research, visual storytelling, the PosMos and making complex things understandable, and are drawn by the opportunity to shape impactful projects for a large international audience, we’d love to hear from you!

Job Structure

3 days of 8 hours per week (approx ~95 hours per month)
Potentially ramping up during launch times and project releases

Renumeration

Day rate – depending on experience & location*
£240-£320 UKP / $320-$420 USD / €280-€370 EUR

*Our rates are differentiated based on geographic location (A-D)
A = high cost global city (e.g. London, New York, Sydney, LA etc)
B = high cost city (Berlin, Amsterdam, Toronto, Manchester etc)
C = mid cost location (Mexico City, Lisbon, Warsaw etc)
D = lower income location (Nairobi, Jakarta, Cairo etc)

How to apply

Please send us

• short cover email up to 300 words about yourself & why you’re the person
• up-to-date resume / CV
• link to sample of your writing
• 1 x potential Beautiful News story – with 50-100 word punchy social copy to frame or contextualise
• 1 x idea that would make a great IIB graphic – and why

Email [click apply] with the subject line “Beautiful News Producer Role 2026” before Monday 20th July midnight PST.
(Messages without this subject line will likely be ignored)

A note on AI: We are not anti-AI, but please don’t use an LLM to write your cover email. (We want to hear your voice). You may use AI to help with your submission, but if you do, you must tell us and briefly explain how you used it. (This includes the writing sample.) We will not respond to applications that we suspect have used AI without saying so.

Timeline

2-3 rounds of interviews. There may also be an editorial test.

Applications open Fri 3rd July 2026
Deadline Mon 20th July midnight PST
Interviews w/c 27th July
Start August / early Sep (depending on holidays)

Thank you for considering and good luck!