Last summer, Sunlight’s Google Journalism fellow, political science Ph.D. candidate and former newspaper reporter Stan Oklobdzija, wrote about how Philly television stations got enough cash from political ads in July of an off-election year to “buy about 348,000 wiz cheesesteaks at Geno’s.” He mapped how Koch affiliated organizations gobbled up airtime at more than 100 TV stations. And he documented how big taxi companies far out spend new ride services such as Uber and Lyft when it comes to political contributions. This summer, that could be you!

The Sunlight Foundation is proud that the Google Foundation is again sponsoring a paid summer internship for an aspiring data journalist in our Washington, D.C. offices.

If you are a student of politics, journalism or data — undergraduate or pursuing a graduate degree — we want to work with you. You will join our experienced reporters and talented developers to tell stories of political influence and tech innovation.

Our Internet tools will be your playground; you’ll have the chance both to work with them, make them better and maybe even think of something new. Here are a few of the things you’ll use:

• Ad Sleuth and Ad Hawk, allowing us to follow spending by super PACs and nonprofit organizations trying to influence elections with television ads.
• The Political Party Time project collects political fundraising invitations into a central, searchable database.
• Open States gives us the ability to follow state bills at each step of the legislative process.
• Docket Wrench lets us track the lobbying on regulations that follows the passage of laws — think health care reform and the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.

We seek detail-oriented fellows with a strong news sense, who are not afraid of code and are eager to tell a story.

The deadline is approaching — Jan. 31 — so please check out the link below and consider applying for our fellowship. And if you are not a student, but know some who would be interested, please pass this announcement along.

Sunlight fellows will receive a stipend of $8,500 for 10 weeks during the summer of 2015 and will also get a travel budget of $1,000. They will spend their first week at Google in Mountain View, Calif., then join Sunlight in Washington, D.C. on June 15, finishing on August 14. Applications are due by midnight on Jan. 31, PST.