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Author: Aleszu Bajak

Storybench’s editor is Aleszu Bajak, a science journalist and former Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT. He is an alum of Science Friday, the founder of LatinAmericanScience.org, and is passionate about breaking down the divide between journalists, developers and designers.

Analyzing the top links, domains, and keywords from 29 million tweets about Covid-19

Today, in collaboration with Lazer Lab at Northeastern University’s Network Science Institute, I published an interactive dashboard exploring the prevalence of Covid-19 news and misinformation on Twitter. The analysis is […]

October 21, 2020October 21, 2020 Aleszu Bajak Research

Reopen schools narrative spreads across shadowy local news sites

Americans are divided about reopening schools this fall and polls show that this disagreement falls along party lines with Republicans more in favor of children returning to schools. Which is […]

August 26, 2020August 26, 2020 Aleszu Bajak Election Tracker

How Núcleo Jornalismo is tracking Brazilian politicians on Twitter

Late last month, Brazil’s justice minister Sergio Moro resigned in protest after President Jair Bolsonaro fired his police chief. According to Moro, a prominent politician who may be seeking a […]

May 6, 2020May 20, 2020 Aleszu Bajak Behind the scenes, Interviews

How to shift Alaska and Hawaii below the lower 48 for your interactive choropleth map

Last month, the Harvard Global Health Institute collaborated with The New York Times and ProPublica to publish a model estimating the capacity of hospitals across the United States to cope […]

April 2, 2020April 2, 2020 Aleszu Bajak How to

How to use hierarchical cluster analysis on time series data

Which cities have experienced similar patterns in violent crime rates over time? That kind of analysis, based on time series data, can be done using hierarchical cluster analysis, a statistical […]

December 13, 2019December 13, 2019 Aleszu Bajak Data Journalism in R, How to

Come join us as funded master’s degree Video Innovation Scholars!

For prospective graduate students interested in video innovation — new techniques and approaches, as well as VR and AR — the School of Journalism is offering special Video Innovation Scholarships […]

December 6, 2019December 6, 2019 Aleszu Bajak Reinventing Local TV News

Gabbard, Booker and Biden get most negative media coverage over last four months

Tulsi Gabbard, Cory Booker and Joe Biden are the 2020 Democratic candidates receiving the most negative media coverage, according to updated findings from the Storybench Election Coverage Tracker at Northeastern […]

September 30, 2019September 30, 2019 Aleszu Bajak Election Tracker

How to do basic text mining using Google Sheets

While techniques for text mining, sentiment analysis and other natural language processing are ubiquitous on the Internet, they’re not always accessible to students. I recently ran this tutorial in my […]

September 20, 2019September 20, 2019 Aleszu Bajak How to

How Colombia’s Datasketch wants to make data visualization easier for Latin American newsrooms

“We live in a world that is drowning in data and getting the stories may actually be harder than ever because the stories are hidden in plain sight in millions […]

August 27, 2019August 28, 2019 Aleszu Bajak Behind the scenes

Exploring 2020 demographic targeting and attack ads using Facebook’s Ad Library

Facebook’s Ad Library was criticized this week by several sources quoted in The New York Times for being “effectively useless as a way to comprehensively track political advertising.” Those sources […]

July 26, 2019July 30, 2019 Aleszu Bajak Election Tracker

How to build margin of victory election maps with Datawrapper

With the campaign for 2020 in full swing, it’s election map season. I was recently poking around Politico’s 2018 midterm election maps and thought I’d recreate their county-by-county Margin of […]

July 17, 2019July 17, 2019 Aleszu Bajak How to

Quantifying the Twitter attacks on Kamala Harris during and following the Democratic debates

Media outlets have been quick to crown Kamala Harris the winner of last month’s Democratic debates thanks to a series of stand-out moments that included passionate storytelling and her pummeling […]

July 11, 2019July 11, 2019 Aleszu Bajak Election Tracker

How to build a GIF of satellite imagery in R

“The timelapse imagery of Chennai’s disappearing reservoirs is mind boggling,” Earther senior reporter Brian Kahn wrote on Twitter recently. Kahn had just published the piece “Why Chennai, India’s Sixth Biggest […]

July 2, 2019July 3, 2019 Aleszu Bajak Data Journalism in R, How to

Fox News’ obsession with AOC crowded out 2020 candidate announcements

“AOC mocks president’s literacy.” “How AOC became the boss of the Democratic Party.” “Ocasio-Cortez claims Trump ‘hates all immigrants.’” Those are all headlines that appeared on Foxnews.com in the days […]

May 31, 2019July 11, 2019 Aleszu Bajak Election Tracker

What issues are 2020 candidates being mentioned with in the media?

Health care is a top concern among voters. That’s according to a recent poll of 2,000 Americans where respondents across age, gender and party lines ranked health care as the […]

May 21, 2019July 11, 2019 Aleszu Bajak Election Tracker

Modeling networked media: Diagrams and graphics in John Wihbey’s The Social Fact

The conceptual black-and-white diagram, or idea-oriented infographic, goes back a long time in publishing design and storytelling. Many an academic or explanatory work has some kind of visual tucked away, […]

May 14, 2019May 16, 2019 Aleszu Bajak Insights, Interviews

Eight tools, datasets and resources from the Open Data Science Conference

This week, thousands of data scientists, software developers, machine learning experts and other data-curious gathered in Boston for the ODSC East conference. Between hands-on training sessions and dynamic keynote speeches from people […]

May 3, 2019May 3, 2019 Aleszu Bajak Roundups

Facebook political ads reveal an early but limited look at the Democratic playbook

In the first three days since launching his 2020 run for president last week, Joe Biden spent more than $400,000 on Facebook ads. His fellow candidates Elizabeth Warren and Bernie […]

May 2, 2019July 11, 2019 Aleszu Bajak Election Tracker

How to build a bubble chart of individuals mentioned in the Mueller report

When the redacted Mueller report was released last week, journalists across the country scrambled to read through and analyze the document. Data scientists and information designers were hard at work, […]

April 25, 2019April 25, 2019 Aleszu Bajak Data Journalism in R, How to

We need deeper reporting and not just horserace coverage of Pete Buttigieg

The media loves a rising star and Pete Buttigieg is no exception. But is “Mayor Pete” just a flash in the pan? Time will tell, as Margaret Sullivan pointed out […]

April 22, 2019July 11, 2019 Aleszu Bajak Election Tracker

Illuminating the road to 2020 through media coverage, candidate tweets and Google searches

Aleszu Bajak Storybench’s editor is Aleszu Bajak, a science journalist and former Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT. He is an alum of Science Friday, the founder of LatinAmericanScience.org, and […]

April 1, 2019April 10, 2019 Aleszu Bajak Election Tracker, Research

How to map point data and polygon shapefiles in R

I recently published a series of interactive maps for Beeradvocate magazine that explored storm surge scenarios and low-lying breweries in Boston, New York City, Charleston and Miami. Here’s Boston: This […]

December 20, 2018December 20, 2018 Aleszu Bajak Data Journalism in R, How to

Exploring Beto O’Rourke and Ted Cruz ads on Facebook using R

When and how often are Beto O’Rourke ads being rolled out on Facebook and who is paying for them? What is the sentiment of those ads and how do Beto’s […]

November 2, 2018 Aleszu Bajak Data Journalism in R

How to map 2018 ballot initiatives on marijuana, energy and voter registration

Washington could impose a polluter’s fee on greenhouse-gas emitters starting in 2020. North Dakota may legalize recreational marijuana while expunging existing criminal records for certain drug-associated arrests, though that initiative might well […]

October 18, 2018 Aleszu Bajak How to

Using French wine reviews to understand TF-IDF, a measure of how unique a word is to a document

“The heady scent of grapefruit and tangelo peel immediately add savoriness to the crisp green-apple fruit that is evident on the nose. But there are also richer hints of honey […]

June 28, 2018June 28, 2018 Aleszu Bajak Data Journalism in R, How to

How to plot state-by-state data on a map of the U.S. in R

While I usually turn to Carto.com or Datawrapper.de for my mapping needs, I decided to give R a whirl. The following tutorial will take craft beer awards data from Great […]

May 16, 2018June 11, 2018 Aleszu Bajak Data Journalism in R, How to

The #ARforChange Project: Using immersive technologies and data for social change

Here at Northeastern, we’re exploring new platforms for civic engagement and social change using immersive media, from 360 video to data storytelling to virtual reality. The School of Journalism, in […]

April 5, 2018April 6, 2018 Aleszu Bajak ARforChange, Research

Storytelling 101 with WCVB’s Maria Stephanos

WCVB-TV anchor Maria Stephanos visited Northeastern University recently to talk to journalism students about video storytelling techniques. While Stephanos is one of Boston’s best-known television personalities, she says she’s focused […]

April 5, 2018April 5, 2018 Aleszu Bajak Reinventing Local TV News

How I designed a journalism course around email newsletters

Can cannabis help address the opioids crisis? What is Northeastern University’s relationship with the environment? What about the university’s role in gentrification? And what is the future of digital storytelling? […]

February 12, 2018February 12, 2018 Aleszu Bajak Insights, Research

Media Watch: Sharon Begley on covering Donald Trump

Last month, STAT News senior writer Sharon Begley spoke at Northeastern University’s School of Journalism about the journalistic perils of probing at Donald Trump’s mental health. Media Watch: Assessing the Press […]

January 23, 2018January 23, 2018 Aleszu Bajak Media Watch

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What is Storybench?
Storybench takes an “under the hood” look at the latest in digital storytelling, from data visualization and investigative journalism to virtual reality and the digital humanities. In addition to in-depth features and interviews with industry practitioners, we offer hands-on tutorials that can be “downloaded” right into the newsroom or classroom.

We also publish research we're running at Northeastern's School of Journalism along with collaborators in data science, communication studies, computational social sciences and information design. These projects include the Co-Laboratory for Data Impact, the Climate Journalism Lab, the 2020 Storybench Election Coverage Tracker and the Reinventing Local TV News project.

Want to contribute to Storybench? Pitch us or join us for a graduate degree in the Media Innovation program at Northeastern University’s School of Journalism.
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Storybench 2020 Election Coverage Tracker

The Storybench 2020 Election Coverage Tracker intends to keep tabs on the political coverage of the 2020 presidential election by covering media trends and using various data sources to explore media narratives.

Instead of keeping track of who’s ahead in the horse race, we’ll be turning our focus to those covering the horse race – the media outlets themselves and various proxies for public attention. Follow along here.

Best of Storybench

How the Wall Street Journal visualized 500+ conflicts of interest of the Trumps

Women on the 2020 campaign trail are being treated more negatively by the media

Getting started with data visualization in R using ggplot2

Understanding what makes a visualization memorable

Using French wine reviews to understand TF-IDF, a measure of how unique a word is to a document

 

Projects

Over the next two years we’ll be surveying the media’s coverage of the candidates and the issues. Follow along here.

 


The Reinventing Local TV News Project, from Northeastern’s School of Journalism, is analyzing the formats and practices of local news stations, and suggesting new ways of telling stories that can better engage diverse audiences. Read our inaugural post here.

 

The Climate Journalism Lab

The Climate Journalism Lab aims to examine and unpack the trends, tools and techniques employed by reporters and organizations covering climate change.

 

Join us at Northeastern!

Want to write for Storybench and probe the frontiers of media innovation? Apply for one of our graduate programs at Northeastern University’s School of Journalism.

Rolling admissions, no GREs required and financial aid available. Email here.

Interviews

Pizza, Press & Politics is our weekly speaker series at Northeastern’s School of Journalism. Watch interviews with David Filipov, Mike Workman, Jenn Smith, Martha Durkee-Neuman, Susan Labandibar, John Ward, Marc Fortier, Carol Gregory, Ling-Mei Wong and Elana Gordon.

Collaborative, Open, Mobile

Over the last three years, Storybench has interviewed 72 data journalists, web developers, interactive graphics editors, and project managers from around the world to provide an “under the hood” look at the ingredients and best practices that go into today’s most compelling digital storytelling projects.

They boil down to three key areas of emphasis: 1) highly networked, team-based collaboration; 2) an ethos of open-source sharing, both within and between newsrooms; 3) and mobile-driven story presentation. Read our paper here.

Storybench on Twitter
What is Storybench?
Storybench takes an “under the hood” look at the latest in digital storytelling, from data visualization and investigative journalism to virtual reality and the digital humanities. In addition to in-depth features and interviews with industry practitioners, we offer hands-on tutorials that can be “downloaded” right into the newsroom or classroom.

We also publish research we're running at Northeastern's School of Journalism along with collaborators in data science, communication studies, computational social sciences and information design. These projects include the Co-Laboratory for Data Impact, the Climate Journalism Lab, the 2020 Storybench Election Coverage Tracker and the Reinventing Local TV News project.

Want to contribute to Storybench? Pitch us or join us for a graduate degree in the Media Innovation program at Northeastern University’s School of Journalism.

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