Job Posting: Director, Web Integrity Project

The Web Integrity Project’s mission is to monitor changes to government websites, holding our government accountable by revealing shifts in public information and access to Web resources, as well as changes in stated policies and priorities. WIP’s monitoring work is amplified by working with journalists who cover WIP’s findings and production of policy analyses to evaluate and recommend changes to Web governance practices and help ensure access to valuable Web resources.

WIP has worked extensively to report on removals of public information from health and healthcare websites, with early work on immigration-related websites and plans to expand into other topic-matter areas.

The Web Integrity Project’s new Director will report directly to Sunlight’s Executive Director and will transition into the role after training in WIP’s core technical and investigative functions over a period of time working closely with WIP’s founders and team of directors.

Location: Washington D.C.

Compensation: This is a full-time employee position, with competitive compensation that will be commensurate with experience and with full benefits. This is not an entry-level position.

The Director will be responsible for stewarding WIP’s mission, managing the work of WIP’s 3-5 full-time staff, and leading WIP’s public communication with journalists, partners, members of Congress, federal agencies, and funders. Core roles and responsibilities will include:

  1. Leading WIP’s staff, including the Director of Research, the Senior Investigator, and one or more Website Monitoring Analysts, in WIP’s core functions, which include:
    • Researching and scoping agency websites for monitoring
    • Using WIP’s software to monitor key websites on a regular basis and using public archives to identify past changes
    • Researching changes to, removals of, and discrepancies in public databases and information or document repositories
    • Writing and vetting reports based on investigations of important changes
    • Working with journalists and civil society groups to disseminate findings
    • Updating and maintaining WIP’s website change tracker
  2. Building new partnerships with journalists and advocacy groups to be able to better understand and disseminate WIP’s findings
  3. Leading WIP’s Web governance policy portfolio, including drafting analyses, as described further below, communicating with federal agencies, and engaging members of Congress and their staff about WIP’s work
  4. Working with Sunlight’s leadership to fundraise for new and expanded programming
  5. Developing a strategy for how WIP’s monitoring and investigations can expand into new topic-areas and implement new methodologies
  6. Leading public communications about WIP’s work, including through writing op-eds and posts and speaking at events and conferences, to create public awareness and explain particularly significant findings

One of WIP’s major goals is to ensure that its work is engaging the government’s behavior, informing how the Web is managed and the way information online is controlled. WIP’s policy portfolio, which will be a key part of the Director’s focus, may include:

  1. Working to understand the decision-making process leading up to changes at agencies
  2. Analyzing how agency website practices may be in violation of Web records guidelines, regulations, or laws, like those issued by the National Archives (NARA) or the Office of Management and Budget
  3. Drafting recommendations on best practices for how agencies should provide notice for website changes, as well as how to log and archive them
  4. Analyzing how changes to Web resources impact the public’s capacity to benefit from or understand governance and engage in democratic processes, like notice-and-comment rulemaking
  5. Analyzing trends of changes that may affect the public’s access to public information, resources, or benefits

Preferred qualifications, experience, and skills:

  • Strong experience leading organizations, small teams, and/or projects
  • Strong experience in research, policy, or investigative work
  • Detail-oriented with demonstrated experience of planning and leading meetings and production timelines
  • Proven ability to successfully manage multiple projects and changing priorities that span team members’ work
  • Good written and verbal communication skills, some experience editing written work products
  • Comfort learning and using new software
  • Proactivity in organizing, documenting, and communicating effectively with stakeholders
  • Some experience speaking on the record and collaborating with journalists
  • Some experience writing grants and fundraising

To apply:  We have enlisted DRi Consulting to assist with this search.  Send an email to search@driconsulting.com with the subject line: “Director, WIP”, indicating how you heard about this position and including the following:

  1. Resume.
  2. A cover letter.
  3. A separate submission briefly addressing the prompts: 1) describe a time you used a new means of investigation that you hadn’t in the past to write a story or conduct an analysis (use of a FOIA request, new data analysis method or software tool you developed, etc.), and 2) describe a time that you synthesized a policy analysis for a public or private audience, from new research you did as part of a team — either you led or were a part of. And,
  4. Sample(s) of a significant research, policy, or journalistic product you produced as a team lead, with a brief description of the team (feel free to include additional samples for which you are the sole author or one of multiple authors).