Simon Rogers quits data journalist role at the Guardian to become Twitter's first data editor

Rogers said in a blog post: "All news organisations are struggling with challenges to what they thought they were. The newspaper's traditional one-way relationship with readers has been replaced by a new equality where stories are broken by anyone with a mobile device.

"Twitter has become such an important element in the way we work as journalists. It's impossible to ignore and increasingly at the heart of every major event, from politics to sport and entertainment.

"As data editor, I'll be helping to explain how this phenomenon works."

Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of Guardian News & Media, said: "Simon has done an amazing job over the last decade helping to build the Guardian's reputation as a world leader in data journalism and it will be fascinating to see what he can do with the vast trove of data that he will have access to at Twitter."

The Guardian datablog was set up in 2009 by Rogers, who joined the company in 1998 as editor of NewsUnlimited. Ball, who was part of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism team that won an Amnesty International digital journalism award in 2011, will take over the running of the Guardian datastore site.