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Derek Willis

@dwillis.bsky.social
6.9K followers 706 following 4.4K posts

I teach data journalism at the University of Maryland, run OpenElections. Fan of WBB & test cricket. Posting obscure things about campaign finance, Congress & elections. github.com/dwillis thescoop.org buttondown.com/dwillis

PostsRepliesMedia
Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 6h
You should read this story: www.thebanner.com/community/lo...
thebanner.com
A Maryland mother’s deportation to Vietnam forces an agonizing choice
Forced 9,000 miles from her family, Melissa Tran confronts what comes next for her U.S.-born children.
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Steven Rich @datab.ae · 7h
god bless student journalists
thecut.com
How Student Journalists Broke the ‘Cornell Seven’ Case
“Our coverage was absolutely completely raw from the lawsuit and nothing was concealed. At a minimum, that’s what we can do as the student newspaper.”
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 7h
This agency also has led advertising campaigns for several colleges at the University of Maryland: www.lmdagency.com/work/bringin...
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evacide @evacide.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Meta Muse appears to read your Apple messages and upload them to the cloud even if you explicitly tell it not to: appleinsider.com/articles/26/...
appleinsider.com
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Matt Hodges @matthodges.bsky.social · 14h
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Her Hoop Stats @herhoopstats.com · 29/09/2026
Please consider supporting our @jsteyz.bsky.social's research by taking this survey at tinyurl.com/ucwomenfans They're looking for "Women who identify as women's sport fans"
WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS RESEARCH STUDY?
The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of witnessing digital body-based abuse directed at women athletes, coaches, and sports personnel. Specifically, we evaluate how exposure to this abuse within women's sport fandom spaces affects women fans, focusing on body surveillance, self-image, and their overall sense of belonging.

WHO WILL BE IN THIS RESEARCH STUDY?
Women who identify as women's sport fans will be recruited on social media fan pages (e.g., Reddit). Approximately 300 participants are being recruited. Participants must be at least 18 years old.
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Happy Annual Fire Safety Report Publication Day! Today, UMD put out its annual listing of the ways that mostly students unintentionally caused fires on campus in the previous year. essr.umd.edu/sites/defaul...
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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Whenever you see a pollster or consultant give a take like this, it’s always worth following the money. In this case, Emanuel has paid Anzalone’s firm nearly $300k (maybe more but that’s what I found so far). A consultant class is devouring the Dem Party www.elections.il.gov/CampaignDisc...
John Anzalone &
@JohnAnzo
X.com
Underestimate @RahmEmanuel at your own risk.
He knows how to win. He knows how to fight.
And he knows how to message.
And no one will out work him. Regardless of whether he wins the Democratic nomination in 2028 he will make an impact on the race. You can be sure of that. Don't take your eyes off of him. At the minimum, learn from him.
Rahm Emanuel Makes His 2026 Play
Rahm Emanuel Makes His 2026 Play
From nytimes.com
6:47 AM • 9/26/26 • 274K Views
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Credit to the Diamondback's football writer for this characterization of the book of Job: dbknews.com/2026/09/28/m...
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I am always here for data sonification posts:
mattwaite.com
Announcing soundeR, an R package that turns data into music(?) – Matt Waite
Announcing the soundeR package, that turns data into sounds. It’s made for people with basic tidyverse skills and a rudimentary understanding of music. You can make sounds with very little, and there’...
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Hoo-boy.
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Random, possibly bad idea: back in the stone ages, on Sunday mornings you could watch a replay of the Florida game on the Sunshine Network. Today, most people who didn't watch the game only get short clips. What if they were narrated by college journalists with the benefit of hindsight?
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Kevin J. Kircher @kevinjkircher.com · 26/09/2026
Microsoft's data center subcontractor in New Jersey illegally runs a bunch of gas "backup" generators on site, figuring they won't get caught or will just eat the wrist-slap fines if they do. Regulatory enforcement is so bad that a third party had to take drone images to get the state to act.
theguardian.com
New Jersey datacenter fined $1.1m after visual investigation showed dozens of unpermitted generators
State regulator’s record fine for DataOne facility in Vineland follows Floodlight investigation with the Guardian
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
"At the end of the day, you are going to be the ones who figure this out. You are going to be the ones who lead journalism's future." "We need to stabilize journalism and seek to grow it today. But just as importantly, we need to invest in tomorrow."
collegejournalism.org
Philanthropy must invest in student journalists
Giving to young journalists pays off over decades — not overnight
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
What you definitely want to see when you're working on a process that uses AI agents: "The shell can write outside its sandbox."
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Sure, you know about the deep state, but do you know about the "deep regime"?
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Now available: U.S. House office expenditures for Q2 2026, parsed and augmented with Bioguide IDs. github.com/dwillis/hous...
github.com
house-expenditures/output at main · dwillis/house-expenditures
Standardized data of U.S. House of Representatives office expenses - dwillis/house-expenditures
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Did a Google Sheets PM suggest this?
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
"Ok, our new AI writing app is almost ready to go. Sure, we spelled 'Hemingway' wrong, but at least we captured some of the bleakness in the slogan, right?"
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
For silly reasons I once signed up for a Research Gate account and now every time I get a "Derek, people are reading your work" email from them I immediately respond, "I doubt that."
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
It’s nice to be back, NYC
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
"Once rockets go up, who cares where they come down That's not my department, says Wernher von Braun"
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
This is ... uh, interesting (and not an official DNC joint). There's also an RNC one. dnc.dev What people think parties do is very weird.
dnc.dev
Democratic National Committee
AI-native portal for the Democratic National Committee — party governance, convention and delegate operations, state-party coordination, and nationwide voter-organizing programs.
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Matt Brown @mattbrown.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
HIVEMIND Let's say I wanted to do some shitpost FOIAing in an attempt to become slightly less depressed at work. Let's say I want to attempt to quantify the amount of caffeine a major CFB coaching staff goes through in a month What programs would you be most curious about? Give me...five or six?
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Matt Hodges @matthodges.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I want more people to know about the chatbot models that all the doctors are using: Osler, Sackett, and Snow. www.openevidence.com/blog/model-f...
openevidence.com
Introducing the OpenEvidence Model Family | OpenEvidence
OpenEvidence is announcing a new family of medical search models, designed to meet the whole spectrum of demands of clinical practice, from rapid point-of-care answers to exhaustive reviews of the lit...
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
No. Was it good when publishers handed their economic fortunes to other platforms? Also no.
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
It's like they saw the 1929 stock market crash and said, "eh, that's not big enough in terms of scale. let's try for a mass audience."
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Seems very bad.
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
My dad wasn't exactly a universal role model for parents, but I will never be able to thank him enough for coming to my baseball games and watching me - admittedly an average talent who tried hard - without saying a critical word. He loathed parents like this guy, and with good reason.
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sandra fish @fishnette.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
new data up at my #copolitics following the money site www.followingthemoneyco.com
followingthemoneyco.com
#FollowtheMoneyCO
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Stephen Stirling @sstirling.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick's voting record has been a point of contention in his race for re-election, so we analyzed it. With @fallonroth.bsky.social www.inquirer.com/politics/nat...
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Joshua Benton @joshuabenton.com · 21/09/2026
New by me —> David Ellison is gonna have control of CNN, and don't pretend any "independent editorial board" will mean otherwise. (With an extended tour of the Rupert Murdoch Cinematic Universe) www.niemanlab.org/2026/09/davi...
niemanlab.org
David Ellison will get control of CNN after all (and don’t pretend an “independent editorial board” will mean otherwise)
In exchange for dropping their lawsuit against Paramount's acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, state AGs have negotiated "independent" oversight of CNN. You shouldn't expect much oversight.
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I have a colleague who at one point added me as a co-host for some Zoom meetings we ran and never took me off, so now I get an invite to every meeting. Which made me wonder whether you could request metadata on zoom meetings from a public university?
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Nathan Kalman-Lamb @nkalamb.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
ICE abducted a WBB player while she was traveling with her Kentucky State team in early August at Louisville airport. She has been imprisoned for 1.5 months and denied care for a serious ACL injury. It is the responsibility of universities and the NCAA to protect their players. They have failed.
Aminata Seck, 26, a student-athlete at Kentucky State University, was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport while traveling with her school's basketball team Aug. 7, said Sadiqa Reynolds, a lawyer helping coordinate Seck's case.

Seck's team was headed to New York for a tournament, and she was taken into custody after going through airport security, said Reynolds, former president and CEO of the Louisville Urban League.
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
This piece is exceptional for many reasons, but one that you should not overlook is the comments and Nikole Hannah-Jones' responses to them. The only way you have a movement is to talk with people.
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Peter Maybarduk @maybarduk.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
We obtained Trump’s confidential drug pricing deals with Pfizer & Lilly via FOIA litigation. The texts are heavily redacted, making it impossible to verify some of Trump's claims. But unredacted text shows Trump exaggerated his drug pricing achievements, which expire anyway at the end of his term.
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Me, watching this Florida State football team:
static.klipy.com
Oh There You Are, Peter! - Hook Movie Scene
ALT: Oh There You Are, Peter! - Hook Movie Scene
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
I'm guessing there's probably non-trivial overlap between people who truly believe that you can alter the weather & college football fans in the South, so that's a fun thing to think about during weather delays.
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Come for a good look at how people are using AI agents to produce news stories, stay for a good lesson on interviewing from Nat Herz: anchoragepress.com/this-ai-agen...
anchoragepress.com
This AI agent has written thousands of Alaska news articles. We interviewed it.
The AI behind AlaskaNews.com cracks jokes and acknowledges a “trust burden.”
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
A sampling of the past 24 hours of political fundraising emails that mention data centers: thescoop.org/political-em...
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Ted Underwood @tedunderwood.com · 19/09/2026
Local newspaper asked me “How important is it to follow tech leaders’ advice to slow AI development? 1 to 10?” One reason I like talking to local media: it reminds you *what the question is* for most people. I answered “1,” because the advice is self-interested & inequality is a bigger threat.
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Rachel Bachman, WSJ sports reporter @realbachscore.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
This, by Dave Barry, is the best explanation I’ve read of what it’s like to be a female sportswriter: davebarry.substack.com/p/michelle?r...
davebarry.substack.com
Michelle
A tribute.
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Front page of today’s NYT. I liked this story better when @gillianbrockell.com did it and it sucks that the NYT cannot bring itself to recognize when other journalists do good work first.
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
What is this Katie Britt fundraising email about? Wrong answers only.
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Derek Willis @dwillis.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
This is true, but how and why would they understand?
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Matt Brown @mattbrown.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Today I learned that the state of Tennessee changed their open records law in April and apparently decided that college athletics vendor contracts are now all classified, making it one of the most restrictive policies in the country. That sucks, in my humble opinion.
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Meredith Shiner @meredithshiner.com · 18/09/2026
to me, this is absolutely the most triggering part of a completely bleak look at the state of young women and girls today (spoiler: it's about the moms. it's always about the moms).
Claire was more ambivalent. She thought GLP-1’s were for people with real medical issues, not teenagers who wanted to look better in Revolve skirt sets. “We’re basically still kids,” she says. “I thought that was wrong.” Couldn’t Marie just hit the gym a little harder? She also worried about the drugs’ potential long-term effects since they’re so new, but Marie was living in the moment. “I don’t really care,” she says. “I’m in my prime, so I’d rather look cute now.” Claire was also jealous. As a dancer, she had always been aware of how she looked in a leotard. In high school, she started to gain some weight, and her mom, a former sorority girl, was always encouraging her to lose a few pounds — especially if she wanted to rush. “Sororities are going to look at your size,” Claire remembers her saying. “Wouldn’t you rather start now?” She was only a size 8 and had never felt that much bigger than other girls until she got to campus and looked around.

Back at home over winter break, Claire told her mom that Marie was on a GLP-1. Her mom admitted she was on one too and had lost 30 pounds. “Now that you know I’m on it, would you feel a little better about doing it as well?” Claire remembers her asking. The answer was “yes.” Her mom got her supply from a friend, who started shipping compounded tirzepatide to Claire’s dorm. When Laura found out, she asked Claire to hook her up. Then she called her mom — who is also on a GLP-1 and once paid Laura $10 a day to cut out sugar when she was in sixth grade — to ask her to cover the $100 a month it would cost. “Everyone’s on it,” Laura told her. “And my mom was like, ‘Sure, I’ll pay.’” In a matter of weeks, with their mothers’ permission, all three girls were injecting themselves with weight-loss drugs that could forever warp their sense of how thin they need to be.
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