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Keenan Chen

@kcinbk.bsky.social
1.2K followers 209 following 63 posts

- Data investigations for @chicago.suntimes.com and @wbez.org - Formerly First Draft News, brownpublichealth.bsky.social, Columbia Journalism Investigations - Lang: 普通話, 廣東話 - Email: kchen[at]chicagopublicmedia.org - Personal site: kcinbk.github.io

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Keenan Chen
Stephanie Kirchgaessner @skirchy.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
This is great and what I love about America www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
nytimes.com
In the United States, Every World Cup Team Is a Home Team
At block parties, backyards and beer halls, an expanded tournament gave immigrant diasporas large and small the chance to revel in support of their home countries.
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Keenan Chen @kcinbk.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
Thanks to @cassifeldman.bsky.social for editing and to Benji Sachs for contributin to this piece. benjysachs.com
benjysachs.com
Benjy Sachs' Website – Portfolio of articles and more
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Keenan Chen @kcinbk.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
The city has also brought fewer major lawsuits against landlords than it did a decade ago. While many advocates want more fines and enforcement, others warn of the risk of “bankrupting landlords, who might just walk away from these buildings,” leaving their liens and unpaid bills to taxpayers.
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Keenan Chen @kcinbk.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
For example, new laws were supposed to force landlords to quickly fix fire-safety violations or face stiff fines after a 2022 Bronx high-rise fire that claimed 17 lives. But 25% of violations issued since then have remained unresolved, along with other violations deemed immediately hazardous.
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Keenan Chen @kcinbk.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
For @nysfocus.com, I wrote about the sharp rise in New York City’s most serious housing code violations over the past decade, and how the city has failed to enforce its own laws, according to city's own data and interviews with tenants and housing advocates.
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Keenan Chen @kcinbk.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
After a 2022 Bronx high-rise fire claiming 17 lives, new laws were supposed to force landlords to quickly fix fire-safety violations or face stiff fines. But 25% of these violations issued since have remained unresolved, along with other violations deemed immediately hazardous.
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Keenan Chen @kcinbk.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
For @nysfocus.com us.com, I wrote about the sharp rise in New York City’s most serious housing code violations over the past decade, and how the city has failed to enforce its own laws, according to city's own data and interviews with tenants and housing advocates.
us.com
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Keenan Chen @kcinbk.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
The data shows detectives were closing out cases much more quickly as caseloads rose.
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Keenan Chen @kcinbk.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
From zero reported cases in November to over 1,200 cases by the end of April, criminals are targeting parked vehicles in northern and western communities like Lake View, Lincoln Park and Logan Square. (with @justinmyers.net
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Keenan Chen @kcinbk.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
As airbag thefts surged this year, the Chicago Police Department spent less time investigating them and solved almost no cases. My latest for @chicago.suntimes.com and @wbez.org , with Zoe Singer and @sophiesherry.bsky.social.
chicago.suntimes.com
1,200 crimes, 1 arrest: Chicago police fail to address boom in air bag thefts
A former high-ranking Chicago cop says the surge in thefts likely means criminals have noticed that police aren’t doing much to address the problem. An alderperson has now proposed a crackdown on the ...
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Keenan Chen @kcinbk.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
The statement reads like "we've decided to decide on a decision on a future date that will be decided."
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Keenan Chen @kcinbk.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
I’ve noticed similar patterns in NYC. These shuttle buses arriving in Chinatowns in Manhattan and Brooklyn to take mostly Asian customers to casinos in Connecticut and Long Island.
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Keenan Chen @kcinbk.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
Late to this incredible @bostonglobe.com story. Using court records and mapping shuttle routes against census data, this investigation shows how New England casinos target Asian communities and engage in predatory pratices. apps.bostonglobe.com/2026/03/metr...
apps.bostonglobe.com
How casinos like Mohegan Sun, Foxwoods target Asian communities
More than 80 percent of those sued by Encore for gambling debts are people of Asian descent.
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Reposted by Keenan Chen
Matthew Facciani @matthewfacciani.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
If you see a photo online and you're not sure if it's real or not, here is a free website that lets you scan through fake images that were debunked, and it's updated daily! imagewhisperer.org/factcheck-db/
imagewhisperer.org
Fact-Check Database — 1,100+ Debunked Images | ImageWhisperer
Search 1,100+ debunked images verified by international fact-checkers. Free, no login required.
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Keenan Chen @kcinbk.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
hellgatenyc.com
City Council’s 'Crackdown' on Bogus Parking Placards Is Itself Bogus, Data Reveals
Thousands of drivers have been repeatedly issued $65 citations for displaying fraudulent parking permits, with some of the worst offenders racking up more than 30 tickets.
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Keenan Chen @kcinbk.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
A year ago, I wrote about NYC's parking corruption using publicly available data and evidence. @nydailynews.com today reports an Adams admin official giving out NYPD placards like candy. No wonder parking agents, civilians employed by NYPD, rarely ticket these bogus permits. tinyurl.com/3mc9cpt3
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Reposted by Keenan Chen
David Roberts @volts.wtf · 26/02/2026
Fascinating new research paper asks: why did Biden receive so little political credit for his enormous investments in manufacturing? Turns out people give all the credit to governors (ironically, in this case, mostly red-state governors who were hostile to the policy!).
pnas.org
Why Biden-era clean energy investment policies had limited political returns | PNAS
The Biden Administration enacted the largest federal policy framework to incentivize clean energy and decarbonization in U.S. history. We examine w...
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Reposted by Keenan Chen
Craig Silverman @craigsilverman.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
Here's a video about my recent investigation into more than two dozen accounts using AI-generated doctors and health professionals to push dubious advice and sell products on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube: indicator.media/p/ai-generat...
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Reposted by Keenan Chen
Jack Sapoch @jacksapoch.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
This investigation was a collaboration with @motherjones.com, @nashvillebanner.bsky.social, News Channel 5, Nashville Noticias, and the Institute for Public Service Reporting - Memphis You can find links to stories here + our methodology write-up: www.lighthousereports.com/methodology/...
lighthousereports.com
How We Unpacked Tennessee’s Cooperation with ICE
Combining bodycam footage, police reports, and more than a million ICE records, this is how we investigated Tennessee Highway Patrol's collaboration with ICE
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Reposted by Keenan Chen
Craig Silverman @craigsilverman.bsky.social · 10/02/2026
"Crying girls will make you rich." That's the actual pitch from a marketer selling packages of emotional videos that brands use to flood TikTok with undisclosed ads. I just published an investigation into industrial UGC campaigns. What I found is troubling. 🧵 indicator.media/p/crying-gir...
indicator.media
“Crying girls will make you rich”: How marketers trick users with mass-produced "organic" content
Indicator analyzed UGC campaigns that generated over 2 billion TikTok views and found rampant violations of disclosure rules.
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Keenan Chen @kcinbk.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
Since PlowNYC is currently offline, I decided to take matters into my own hands and built a map to track snow removal efforts by DSNY using the department’s extensive GPS data from its fleet of snow removal vehicles. You can find the tracker at kcinbk.github.io/SnowDay_NYC/
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Reposted by Keenan Chen
Canary Media Inc. @canarymedia.com · 19/12/2025
Clean energy went through a lot this year, but it still managed to dominate new power deployment in the U.S.
canarymedia.com
Chart: Clean energy remains dominant in the US — despite Trump
Trump spent much of 2025 boosting fossil fuels and blocking renewables, but 92% of new power additions through November were solar, wind, or batteries.
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Keenan Chen @kcinbk.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
Thanks to @akashmehta.bsky.social shmehta.bsky.social and @alykatzz.bsky.social for editing this piece.
y.social
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Keenan Chen @kcinbk.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
The overtime payroll spike is largely driven by the city’s austerity-focused fiscal policies aimed at cutting short-term costs. The result? Delays and errors surged, directly impacting some of the city’s most vulnerable residents.
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Keenan Chen @kcinbk.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
For @nysfocus.bsky.social and @thecity.nyc , I took a deep-dive into NYC’s Department of Social Services. OT spending has soared while frontline positions processing SNAP and Cash Assistance applicants remain unfilled, impacting the city’s most vulnerable residents (with @reuvenblau.bsky.social)
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Keenan Chen @kcinbk.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
You can actually see the changes—the removal of human causes of climate change—side-by-side on the Internet Archive. web.archive.org/web/diff/202...
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Reposted by Keenan Chen
Jason Scott @textfiles.com · 10/12/2025
I was sent some screenshots of HTML sites around the 1994 election cycle, one of the really rare to find examples of websites playing a part in politics so early. I'll get them on the archive but now you get them too.
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Reposted by Keenan Chen
Reuters @reuters.com · 01/12/2025
Refugees feeding refugees: Sudanese families fleeing violence find little aid at Chad border reut.rs/3M7Wvs9
reut.rs
Refugees feeding refugees: Sudanese families fleeing violence find little aid at Chad border
At a transit camp here on the Chad-Sudan border, Najwa Isa Adam, 32, hands out bowls of pasta and meat to orphaned Sudanese children from al-Fashir, the site of a recent violent takeover by paramilitary forces in Sudan.
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Keenan Chen @kcinbk.bsky.social · 05/11/2025
Made a precinct-level map on the results of the NYC six ballot measures. - A majority of voters in almost every single precinct on Staten Island voted against all of these proposals. - Affordable housing–related measures proved popular even in some affluent neighborhoods and also outer borough.
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Keenan Chen @kcinbk.bsky.social · 27/10/2025
Not all misinformation requires sophisticated tech or AI. For @craigsilverman.bsky.social's @indicator.media, I deep-dived into these accounts generated millions of views—and potentially handsome profits—with a little clever editing and an understanding of how strong emotions drive clicks.
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Reposted by Keenan Chen
Annie Waldman @anniewaldman.bsky.social · 16/10/2025
Justice Brett Kavanaugh: “If the officers learn that the individual they stopped is a U.S. citizen...they promptly let the individual go." The reality: Americans have been dragged, tackled, beaten, tased and shot by immigration agents. A must read from the very talented @nicolefoy.bsky.social:
propublica.org
More Than 170 U.S. Citizens Have Been Held by Immigration Agents. They’ve Been Kicked, Dragged and Detained for Days.
The government does not track how often immigration agents grab citizens. So ProPublica did. Our tally — almost certainly incomplete — includes people who were held for days without a lawyer. And near...
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Keenan Chen @kcinbk.bsky.social · 25/09/2025
Many thanks to @montgomery.bsky.social for the edit.
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Keenan Chen @kcinbk.bsky.social · 25/09/2025
I wrote about how foreign apparel sellers rushed to cash in on Charlie Kirk’s death. Within hours, these astroturf accounts started flooding Facebook and Instagram with merch ads. Some of these paid posts even claimed “100% of the profits” would go to his orgs and family. tinyurl.com/4x253yn7
theguardian.com
Merch sellers cash in on Kirk’s killing with flood of social media ads
Foreign brands not linked to Kirk’s Turning Point USA sell patriotic gear with unclear promises to donate profits
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Reposted by Keenan Chen
The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · 20/09/2025
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are walking and driving south to escape Israel's Gaza City offensive. wapo.st/4pwffkf
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Reposted by Keenan Chen
Acyn @acyn.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
Jarvis: I hate to say this to my friends here at CNN, mass media is dying, so they're taking the last of these vestiges of institutions that matter and they're trying to turn them into propaganda organs under threat from the head of the FCC
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Reposted by Keenan Chen
The New York Times @nytimes.com · 17/09/2025
Israel’s minister of culture announced plans to cancel the funding for the country’s top film award ceremony after a 90-minute drama about a Palestinian boy won best feature on Tuesday night. nyti.ms/4mla5oe
nyti.ms
Israel Says It Will Defund Film Awards After Palestinian Win
A drama about a Palestinian boy who sneaks into Israel won the top prize at Israel’s version of the Oscars. The country’s culture minister called the ceremony “shameful.”
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Keenan Chen @kcinbk.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
Conservative voices are now coalescing around the idea of “online radicalization,” claiming Kirk’s suspected shooter, a white, Christian male, was groomed into a violent leftist. Quite a surprising turn, given their past hostility to the concept rigorously researched by academics and journalists.
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Reposted by Keenan Chen
Emily Badger @emmbadger.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
If the federal show of force in Washington has had a deterrent effect on crime, it appears to have deterred entirely normal aspects of city life, too. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/u...
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Reposted by Keenan Chen
The Associated Press @apnews.com · 09/09/2025
An AP investigation finds that Silicon Valley companies sold surveillance technology to Chinese police and security contractors, ignoring warnings that the tools were being used to quash dissent, persecute religious sects and target minorities.
bit.ly
US tech companies enabled the surveillance and detention of hundreds of thousands in China
U.S. technology firms such as IBM, Dell and Cisco largely designed and built China’s surveillance state, an AP investigation finds. The tech companies deny wrongdoing.
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Reposted by Keenan Chen
Timmons Roberts @timmonsroberts.bsky.social · 25/08/2025
My lab's been attacked by an anti-wind group and their lawyers. They threatened the science funding of my whole university, to shut me and my undergraduate research assistants up. NYT just covered it. 1/n www.nytimes.com/2025/08/25/c...
nytimes.com
Law Firm Pressures Brown University to Erase Research on Anti-Wind Groups
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Keenan Chen @kcinbk.bsky.social · 26/08/2025
Thanks for reading! And congrats on the latest piece. Really well researched and well reported.
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Keenan Chen @kcinbk.bsky.social · 22/08/2025
The CEO told @nytimes.com it’s fine for reporters to take cash to cover their expenses. That’s just false. Like any newsroom, the paper barred editorial staff from taking cash. And if he’s worried about fair comp for his reporters, give them a raise instead of paying barely minimum wages.
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Keenan Chen @kcinbk.bsky.social · 22/08/2025
When I reported for a leading Chinese-language newspaper in NYC years ago, I often had to explain: “No, I can’t take your red envelopes.” Even now, seeing them still give me anxiety. I wrote about my personal experience on my SubStack. kcinbk.substack.com/p/a-former-i...
kcinbk.substack.com
A former insider on NYC's “Red Envelope Gate”
I had anxiety whenever I saw these "red envelopes."
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Keenan Chen @kcinbk.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
(Full disclosure: I'm not a real estate analyst, so take my analysis with a grain of salt)
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Keenan Chen @kcinbk.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
And when you factor in regulated rental units across New York City, the overall effect of the ban appears even more limited.
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Keenan Chen @kcinbk.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
While it's always tricky to draw direct correlations, less than 10% of the market-rate rental listings on StreetEasy have increased asking rents immediately following the news of the ban on June 10.
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Keenan Chen @kcinbk.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
I started my Substack because… why not? For my first post, I wrote about how the NYC FARE Act — which bans mandatory broker fees for new tenants — has yet to trigger any significant rent hikes. tinyurl.com/4tfnbyfr
tinyurl.com
New York City's broker fee ban, explained in three charts.
It’s still very early, but only a small fraction of rental listings appear to have increased asking rent since the FARE Act went into effect.
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Reposted by Keenan Chen
Jon Keegan @jonkeegan.com · 18/06/2025
Amazing presentation, fascinating data: www.pewresearch.org/journalism/f...
pewresearch.org
News Media Tracker
Pew Research Center’s News Media Tracker shows data on Americans’ awareness of, use of and trust in 30 major news sources to map out part of the U.S. media ecosystem.
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Matthew Facciani @matthewfacciani.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
"More than half (54%) of people get news from networks like Facebook, X and YouTube - overtaking TV (50%) and news sites and apps (48%)" www.bbc.com/news/article...
bbc.com
Social media now main source of news in US, research suggests
A report also finds right-leaning audiences on X have almost doubled in the UK since Elon Musk's takeover.
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Sophia Lebowitz @sophlebo.bsky.social · 16/06/2025
NEW: A cottage industry of unlicensed, unregulated driving schools in New Jersey are targetting the state’s immigrant population, evading the system carefully set up for safety.
nyc.streetsblog.org
Unsafe at Any Speed: NJ Officials Allow Illegal Driving Schools To Run Rampant - Streetsblog New York City
A cottage industry of unlicensed, unregulated driving schools targets the state’s immigrant population, evading the system carefully set up for safety.
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