Beyond Borders: H-1B Hurdles, Immigration Journeys & Data Dreams ✈️📊

Hello Benchies!

This week, borders and bylines take center stage — with new visa rules raising questions about the future of data journalism and an interactive journey that lets you step into the shoes of immigrants across history. But that’s not all. We’ve also got a clean-cut guide to web typography, a throwback on the pitfalls of political forecasting, and a step-by-step look at wildfire data. 

Let’s dive in 👇

Here is our featured content this week:

✍️🎨 A quick guide to web typography for web developers

Afraid of design? Can never choose the kind of fonts you want? Oleh Korniieko’s got you covered! Our tutorial will help you through practical CSS techniques to make web typography cleaner, more readable and visually balanced. 

It covers font formats (like WOFF2), variable fonts, line spacing, tracking, and container limits — all geared toward getting strong results with smart defaults rather than reinventing every rule. Check out the full tutorial here!

 🌎📰 Beyond Borders: Visa policies reshaping the future of data journalism

In our latest piece, we unpack how shifting U.S. visa rules could reshape the future of data journalism. International reporters and designers have long fueled some of the field’s best work, and new costs and restrictions could change who gets to build tomorrow’s newsrooms.

Chiqui Esteban and Szu Yu Chen from the Washington Post and Yuqing Liu from The Minnesota Star Tribune have shared how changing visa rules impact global talent in data journalism. 

Cool Stuff Corner: What are we reading?

What Would You Do? Take an Immigrant’s Journey 

This is an interactive narrative from Expmag that lets you live through eight composite immigrant stories spanning from the 19th century to the 21st. Each journey forces you to make choices around border crossings, discrimination, family separation, and legal barriers — all based on real immigration law and historical events. Try one of the journeys — see how your decisions stack up.

Did you know?

On Sept. 25, according to Reuters U.S. lawmakers sent letters to top tech and media firms—including Amazon, Google, Meta, Apple and Microsoft—demanding explanations for their ongoing hiring of H-1B workers while laying off U.S. staff. The move comes after the Trump administration introduced a $100,000 fee on new H-1B applications, a change expected to shake up talent pipelines in journalism, graphics, and tech. The Washington Post

From the Vault🏛️

🗳️🔮 How and why journalists must navigate the uncertainty of political forecasting

On brand with this week’s theme, we’re leaning right into political uncertainty. While today’s climate feels uniquely unpredictable, we’ve been here before. This 2021 throwback looks at how forecasts can sway public perception — even when they miss the mark — and how journalists walk the tricky line of reporting predictions without misleading audiences when uncertainty looms large. Read more here

🌍🔥 A step-by-step guide: visualizing organic carbon in near real time

In this amazing step-by-step guide, Marco Hernandez breaks down exactly how he used forecast models from NASA’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office Research Site to visualize the organic carbon released into the atmosphere during wildfires that ravaged the West Coast. Hernandez has worked in graphics for more than 20 years. His career spans across Reuters, La Nación, The South China Morning Post and the New York Times – and it shows. Take a peek at this tutorial!

That's all we've got for this week! Thanks for reading, and let us know if there's anything you'd like to see in these newsletters or in our coverage at [email protected].

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