iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Aleszu @aleszu.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

Very cool that Storybench.org, the behind the scenes of data and digital storytelling blog I started 10 years ago is still going strong! Thanks to incredible students, professors and contributors like @walinchus.bsky.social

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Aleszu @aleszu.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

Bloomberg used a ResNet-18 CNN model to classify waste sites in Gaza, and “every computer-generated result was manually validated to ensure the highest possible accuracy.”

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Teresa Carr @teresacarr.bsky.social · 16/07/2025

My investigation on the cannabis industry for @undark.org — supported by @pulitzercenter.bsky.social — took me from farms in OR to MA testing labs to the OK capitol, uncovering corruption and highlighting change makers along the way. It's quite the ride. Enjoy! undark.org/2025/07/16/c...

undark.org

Weed Regulation is Foundering. For Answers, Look to the Labs

Lots of legal marijuana is sold with inflated THC levels or unsafe contaminants. Can the oversight system be reformed?

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Frank Bajak @fbajak.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

If you thought legalizing marijuana for medical and recreational use would make it safer and free of contaminants, think again. Labs cheat and cheating labs get more business, @undark.org reports. The answer is more state-run labs. By @teresacarr.bsky.social Data viz by @aleszu.bsky.social

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RJI Innovation Team @innovationrji.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

We worked with the team at DFP to evaluate tools and establish a workflow for creating short-form vertical video. We wanted to find a way to edit and caption the most important parts of city council meeting videos, which are posted online, to publish on social media. rjionline.org/news/how-to-...

rjionline.org

How to transform public meetings into engaging social media clips

Testing Descript, OpusClip and Veed.

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Robert Simmon @rsimmon.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

Satellite imagery has unique qualities that make it suitable for investigative journalism. It allows observation of inaccessible places, views of wide areas, monitoring over time, and even “see” the invisible. Read more in my latest post: medium.com/@robsimmon/n... #dataviz #ddj #cartography

Three satellite images showing construction of the Fordo nuclear enrichment plant in Iran, attempts to hide the air vents, and the location of bomb strikes.

Satellite-derived map from National Geographic showing the Mustang Valley between Tibet and Nepal.

Animation showing the movement of smoke over the Upper Midwest from Canadian wildfires.

Chart showing water used to grow animal feed in the Imperial Valley.

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Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

The #SCIMaP team announces a major update: an analysis of the economic impacts of the White House's NIH FY26 budget. Bottom-line, we estimate $46B in total economic loss, 202K lost jobs, and impacts in communities nationwide. Interactive map and shareable report: scienceimpacts.org/fy26 a 🧵

Economic loss due to NIH budget cuts by congressional district, scienceimpacts.org/fy26

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Craig Silverman @craigsilverman.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

The Wayback Machine is an indispensable tool for archiving web content. It's also a powerful search engine that can dig up deleted webpages and social media posts. Here's the Indicator guide to getting the most out of the Wayback machine: indicator.media/p/ge...

indicator.media

Getting the most out of the Wayback Machine

Tips for the Wayback Machine browser extension, API, and more!

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Aleszu @aleszu.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

LolArchiver launches a new tool: YouTube Comment History. View all video comments from a specific user. So far they’ve archived 20 billion comments from 1.4 billion different accounts. youtube-tools.lolarchiver.com via @craigsilverman.bsky.social

youtube-tools.lolarchiver.com

Youtube-Tools | User Comments History

Search any YouTube user comment history with ease. Access over 20 billion comments from more than 1.4 billion users, recorded since 2005. Quickly find and explore user comment histories for research, ...

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Andrew Deck @andrewdeck.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

One Pulitzer Prize winner (and three finalists) disclosed using AI to this year's judging committee. I spoke to the reporters behind those stories about how they leaned on AI tools in their investigations. My latest for @niemanlab.org. www.niemanlab.org/2025/05/how-...

niemanlab.org

How this year’s Pulitzer awardees used AI in their reporting

For a second year, the Pulitzer Prizes required applicants to divulge AI usage — one winner and three finalists disclosed.

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Observatory on Social Media @osome.iu.edu · 13/05/2025

Our team just launched three new tools to help you explore social media data: 🌉NewsBridge – Adds AI-powered context to Facebook posts 🔍 Barney’s Tavern – Search 34B social media posts 🌐 OSoMeNet – Visualize how info spreads across platforms Learn more and try them out: osome.iu.edu/research/blo...

osome.iu.edu

Three New Tools to Explore Social Media

The Observatory on Social Media (OSoMe, pronounced “awesome”) is excited to introduce three new tools that will make it easier to study and engage with...

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ProPublica @propublica.org · 07/05/2025

1/ For ProPublica’s “Life of the Mother” series, winner of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for public service, we reported on five pregnant women who died after not receiving timely medical care in states with strict abortion bans. These are their stories 🧵

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Aleszu @aleszu.bsky.social · 04/05/2025

“The strongest media organizations I've encountered understand that people don't seek out journalism for journalism's sake - they want solutions to problems, ways to improve their lives, recognition, community.“ @pboehler.net www.pboehler.net/theory-of-se...

pboehler.net

Stop pretending journalism matters on its own

Learning to measure journalism by its human value.

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Alyson Hurt @alykat.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

Join my team at NPR! We're hiring for a senior graphics reporter. Remote-friendly (in the US). grnh.se/f78153425us

grnh.se

Senior Graphics Reporter

Remote

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Meghan Hoyer @meghanhoyer.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

🚨We're hiring! 🚨 The @wpdatateam.bsky.social is looking for a computational journalist -- someone who can help tell big national stories but also work across our team in developing best devops and big data practices. We value camaraderie, learning and collaboration. Feel free to reach out w/ Qs:

washpost.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com

Computational Journalist, Data Reporting

Application Instructions Please list all professional experience and explain any gaps in employment history. All of your application materials, which may include PDF files of work samples and/or links...

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Aleszu @aleszu.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

Bloomberg analyzed data, “which covers Jan. 1, 2012 through Feb. 17, 2025, obtained from the Deportation Data Project. The dataset includes records of more than 3.5 million ICE detainees and the dates when the detainees entered and left facilites.” www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202...

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Aleszu @aleszu.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

The AP “ran the text of [push] alerts through a model called BAAI general embedding to vectorize it. We then ran a similarity search over the vectors, using a FAISS index, and boosted the specific terms ‘Trump’ and ‘U.S. government.’” apnews.com/projects/tru...

apnews.com

The push alerts of the first 100 days of the Trump administration

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Voilà: Francis Gagnon @chezvoila.com · 26/04/2025

So much to love in the scrollytelling — the ternary plot, the depth of the data, the findings — but my favourite part is the explanation and the text in general. 📊 Remember, a chart doesn't have to be understood in 3 seconds. It should reward the effort you put into understanding it.

abc.net.au

This triangle helps explain a titanic shift in how Australia votes

This triangle is going to help us explain how Australian politics has fundamentally changed over the past five decades.

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Kevin Collier @kevincollier.bsky.social · 23/04/2025

I really appreciate news stories that take a phenomenon we all generally implicitly understand or assume but don't have any hard data or evidence for, then meticulously prove it. Well done @stuartathompson.bsky.social.

nytimes.com

They Criticized Musk on X. Then Their Reach Collapsed.

Three users who disagreed with the site’s owner saw views for their posts plummet.

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Aleszu @aleszu.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

“Data from the Nature Careers global science jobs platform show that US scientists submitted 32% more applications for jobs abroad between January and March 2025 than during the same period in 2024” www.nature.com/articles/d41...

nature.com

Exclusive: a Nature analysis signals the beginnings of a US science brain drain

A trawl of job views and application data suggests jobseekers are looking abroad as the Trump administration’s cuts to science take hold.

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Aleszu @aleszu.bsky.social · 20/04/2025

“I think it's hard to overstate what a significant departure this is and the reshaping of longstanding norms and expectations that people have about what the government does with their data,” says Elizabeth Laird at the Center for Democracy and Technology www.wired.com/story/doge-c...

wired.com

DOGE Is Building a Master Database to Surveil and Track Immigrants

DOGE is knitting together data from the Department of Homeland Security, Social Security Administration, an IRS that could create a surveillance tool of unprecedented scope.

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Heather Randell @heatherrandell.bsky.social · 18/04/2025

This is an EXCELLENT article. I teach statistics to public policy students & tell them that data are essential for making the world a better place. We need good data to assess the state of things, see how things have changed over time, & evaluate if policies work. www.propublica.org/article/trum...

propublica.org

Trump’s War on Measurement Means Losing Data on Drug Use, Maternal Mortality, Climate Change and More

By slashing teams that gather critical data, the administration has left the federal government with no way of understanding if policies are working — and created a black hole of information whose con...

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Ence Morse @ence.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

The Post identified several instances of Trump or DOGE implementing policy ideas proposed to Musk by users on X. Some proposals went from Musk's X feed to the White House Briefing Room in just hours. with @erxclau.me @azipaybarah.bsky.social & Talia Trackim www.washingtonpost.com/politics/int...

washingtonpost.com

Elon Musk gets government policy ideas from X. Here’s how.

A look at which accounts — big and small — have Musk’s ear and how some appear to have sparked action from Musk and the Trump administration.

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Adam Sawyer @adamjst.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

RE: SCOTUS Access to legal counsel seems to be make or break for so many. I mean, who walks around with a habeas petition in their pocket? In a recent article for tracreports.org, I compared how often individuals with different spoken language proficiencies are represented in immigration court.

A point graph entitled Changes in Legal Representation by Language in Completed Immigration Court Cases.
The x-axis is entitled Percent of Cases with Representation. The Y-axis has ten languages in order of relative representation. There are three text annotations.
1. Compared to the previous four years, Arabic-speakers are represented in a smaller share of cases in FY 25...
2. ...while Russian-speakers are represented in a greater share.
3. For both Creole- and Spanish-speakers, the rate of representation has fallen by more than 10 percentage points in FY 25.

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Aleszu @aleszu.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

Nature analysis of NIH Grant Terminations in 2025 database www.nature.com/articles/d41...

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Al Shaw @shaw.al · 02/04/2025

Rare opportunity to work with the great @lenagroeger.bsky.social creating graphics at @propublica.org. And yes, it's a remote-friendly, union job in the @propublicaguild.bsky.social -->

job-boards.greenhouse.io

Graphics Editor

New York City, United States; Remote, United States

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Aleszu @aleszu.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

“A week ago, somebody added malicious code to the tj-actions/changed-files GitHub Action. If you used the compromised action, it would leak secrets to your build log.” Tips plus a shell script to audit your GitHub Actions alexwlchan.net/2025/github-...

Screenshot of shell script to audit GitHub actions code

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Aleszu @aleszu.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

Speaking out Outlier last year was a blast. Apply to give a talk by midnight PT tomorrow, March 15!

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Aleszu @aleszu.bsky.social · 11/03/2025

Very gratifying to see three data visualization projects we worked on at @urbaninstitute.bsky.social longlisted at the Information is Beautiful awards. Kudus to @mitchellthorson.com @benkates.com and @arobotwriting.bsky.social for their outstanding work bringing these complex datasets to life.

Screenshot showing the Urban Institute tool "Upward Mobility Data Dashboard."

Image of a data tool published by the Urban Institute featuring a unique radial visualization categorizing occupations in terms of quality and occupational crowding across demographic groups

Image showing the Urban Institute data tool "The Changing Medical Debt Landscape in the United States" which allows users to explore medical debt and its drivers at state and county levels, highlighting the 15 million Americans that have medical debt in collections and how the amounts they owe differ between regions.

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Aleszu @aleszu.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

How would cuts to SNAP benefits affect your state and county? The @urbaninstitute.bsky.social just published a new tool showing that SNAP benefits will fail to cover the cost of a modestly priced meal in every county in the US. www.urban.org/data-tools/s...

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 22/02/2025

"In every state, every congressional district, and more than 95 percent of counties in the United States, public charities receive government grants. Without these grants, most nonprofits would be unable to cover their expenses." Should not be a partisan issue. www.urban.org/research/pub...

map showing distribution of nonprofit grant loss across the US

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Aleszu @aleszu.bsky.social · 25/02/2025

Mass deportations would worsen our housing crisis. Given how behind they are in housing construction, coupled with high populations of foreign-born construction workers, Florida and Nevada are particularly vulnerable, new @urbaninstitute.bsky.social analysis shows: www.urban.org/urban-wire/m...

Share of construction workers born outside the US

Gap between housing stock growth and household growth

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Aleszu @aleszu.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

“These are like train tracks the housing economy travels on,” Dworkin said. “Tearing up the tracks creates enormous risk. … Without the funds, those apartment buildings are not going to be built.” www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

washingtonpost.com

HUD cuts expected to worsen America’s housing crisis, staffers say

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is expected to be slashed in half, according to an internal memo obtained by The Washington Post.

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Aleszu @aleszu.bsky.social · 22/02/2025

Metro areas with the most office-to-apartment conversions in progress www.axios.com/2025/02/22/o... RentCafe report here www.rentcafe.com/blog/rental-...

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Yonah Freemark @yonahfreemark.com · 21/02/2025

HUD programs support more than 5 million low-income households. They're now under threat of big cuts. Our new data tool @urbaninstitute.bsky.social provides detailed info about people supported by HUD programs—and funds received—in every state & Congressional district: www.urban.org/data-tools/f...

Almost 600,000 people are supported by HUD affordable housing programs in Texas. Cities, towns, and counties throughout the state receive hundreds of millions of dollars each year in Community Development Block Grants.

In Mississippi, federal housing programs support 105,758 people and 53,157 households. These programs support people across all of Mississippi's Congressional districts. Overall, HUD's programs distribute more than $400 million annually into Mississippi alone.

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Aleszu @aleszu.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

Pair this with @propublica.org's reporting "Department of Education Halts Thousands of Civil Rights Investigations Under Trump" showing the administration has placed 10,000+ student complaints related to disability access and sexual and racial harassment on hold www.propublica.org/article/depa...

propublica.org

“We’ve Been Essentially Muzzled”: Department of Education Halts Thousands of Civil Rights Investigations Under Trump

Since Inauguration Day, the Office for Civil Rights has only opened about 20 investigations focused on Trump’s priorities, placing more than 10,000 student complaints related to disability access and ...

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Aleszu @aleszu.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

Dismantling the Dept of Ed or disrupting functions like enforcing critical civil rights laws or halting IDEA funding could affect students with disabilities across the US. The number of public school students with Individualized Education Programs may surprise you: www.urban.org/urban-wire/h...

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Aleszu @aleszu.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

"Chinese hospitals are retraction hotspots. But universities and institutes in China, Saudi Arabia, India, Pakistan & Ethiopia feature in the data as well. Retractions can be for honest mistakes... but evidence suggests the majority of cases are related to misconduct." www.nature.com/articles/d41...

nature.com

Exclusive: These universities have the most retracted scientific articles

A first-of-its-kind analysis by Nature reveals which institutions are retraction hotspots.

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Charles Ornstein @charlesornstein.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

NEW: Texas Banned Abortion. Then Sepsis Rates Soared. ProPublica’s first-of-its-kind analysis is the most detailed look yet into a rise in life-threatening complications for women experiencing pregnancy loss under Texas’ abortion ban.

propublica.org

Texas Banned Abortion. Then Sepsis Rates Soared.

ProPublica’s first-of-its-kind analysis is the most detailed look yet into a rise in life-threatening complications for women experiencing pregnancy loss under Texas’ abortion ban.

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Aleszu @aleszu.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

How long will housing recovery following LA's wildfires take? My team @urbaninstitute.bsky.social requested data on four recent fires and analyzed the recovery phases along three key milestones: 1) Debris removal 2) A building permit and 3) Certificate of occupancy www.urban.org/urban-wire/w...

Line charts showing the timing of recovery phases for the 2018 Carr Fire.

Line charts showing the timing of recovery phases for the 2018 Camp Fire.

Line charts showing the timing of recovery phases for the 2022 Marshall Fire.

Line charts showing the timing of recovery phases for the 2023 Maui Wildfires.

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Knight Science Journalism @ MIT @ksjatmit.bsky.social · 11/02/2025

Looking to add science journalism to your feed? For over 40 years we've brought journalists to MIT to hone their craft. Now they're on Bluesky ⬇️ bsky.app/starter-pack...

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National Zoning Atlas @zoningatlas.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

Timely new research by @urbaninstitute.bsky.social with @sarabronin.bsky.social uses NZA data to examine zoning’s relationship to areas at risk of climate hazards. Using Mobile County, AL as their case study, the team developed preliminary metrics for a pilot “Climate-Resilient Development Index."

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Charles Ornstein @charlesornstein.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

This is a big deal, y'all. Federal health websites are being stripped of content or removed in their entirety. Stick with this thread for a look at what's disappeared so far! 1/x

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Aleszu @aleszu.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

“Between 1990 and 2020, nearly 45% of the homes built in California has broken ground in what researchers and firefighters call the wildland-urban interface.” calmatters.org/housing/2025... citing silvis.forest.wisc.edu/data/wui-cha...

silvis.forest.wisc.edu

Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Change 1990-2020

Spatial Analysis For Conservation and Sustainability

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