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How the Marshall Project uses AI to tackle big data - and more
From AI’s newsroom impact to democratizing access to education data and investigative deep dives, Storybench brings you the latest in digital journalism.
Storybench
January 17, 2025
Hey there, Benchies! Happy 2025!
You know the drill – new year, new content. What's your New Year's resolution? Ours is to keep up you up to date with all the tips, tricks and trends in the digital world.
From AI’s growing presence in newsrooms to deep dives on investigative journalism and data-driven storytelling, here’s what’s making waves as we kick off 2025. Happy reading!
Here is our featured content this week:
As any journalism student will tell you (with varying degrees of exasperation), we’re living in the era of mass sharing and large data sets. And journalists have put all this new data to work in everything from deep dive investigations to developing useful tools for the public to use. But the relationship between journalism and data isn’t one way… As much as journalists have used data to strengthen their own storytelling, data has deeply shaped the field of journalism in the last few decades. This reality was one of the key topics of conversation at last year’s Computation + Journalism Symposium.
At the center of many of these conversations was Aaron Sankin, Deputy Data Editor at the Marshall Project, who served as one of two keynote speakers, alongside investigative journalist Julia Angwin, who founded The Markup. We sat down with Sankin to discuss his career in data journalism and how data can help us understand the structural forces shaping the U.S. criminal justice system and the world at large. This is one peek behind the scenes that you won’t want to miss!
It wouldn’t be a new season ⛄ without a new AI and journalism update! A lot happened in 2024, and like it or not, the year seemed to reinforce one specific reality more than perhaps all others…AI is here to stay. This fact has many people, and industries, wondering what’s next – journalism is no exception.
As the year wound down, the relationship between AI and journalism heated up, with new lawsuits, licensing deals, and AI usage in newsroom practice. It was a lot to take in, but don’t worry, the Storybench team has you covered.
Our own Rahul Bhargava, Peiyao Hu, Vivica D'souza combed through all the nitty gritty happenings so you wouldn’t have to, and are here with a summary of the latest developments, and even a sneak peek at what might be next. I know, aren't they the best? Check it out.
Cool Stuff Corner: What are we reading?
Overtime (or as it’s usually called in the industry, OT) is a contentious topic when it comes to law enforcement. Many on the outside argue that far too much is spent on OT, while unions and those working in the industry hold fast to the notion that OT is how those who serve can afford to make a living, especially in a state with as high a cost of living as Massachusetts.
No matter where you stand, $350,000 in overtime in one year (the amount earned by one State Police Detective) is a LOT of money. But how does this sum stack up to what others have made or are making? This Boston Globe article has the scoop.
As anyone who has had the sobering experience of going to the grocery store recently can attest… food prices are at an all-time high. According to most frustrated shoppers at your local Market Basket, it's worse in Massachusetts than elsewhere. But is that true? And how do these price changes compare to others more recently? Also, while we’re at it, have some food prices gone up more than others? We have so many questions. And I’m sure you do too.
Lucky for us, the Boston Globe has many of the answers, complete with – you know it if we’re bringing it up -- tonssss of awesome datavis. This is one you won’t want to miss if you’re buying groceries anytime soon…. so, well, everyone.
From the Vault
As a new year begins, so too resume debates about education at both the local and national levels. It can be tough to sift through the fiery rhetoric to get to the hard data when it comes to important questions. “How have student demographics at the school down the street changed over time?” “How have student outcomes changed over the course of the pandemic?” and so on. Making things more difficult, this data is often spread across multiple government agencies, and getting meaningful insights can require laboriously cross-referencing and combining data from multiple places. Urban Institute is trying to change that, with the help of Lead Data Engineer Erika Tyagi.
Tyagi works on projects aimed at democratizing access to data, and is passionate about developing user-friendly systems that make analyzing data more accessible, reproducible, and enjoyable. In 2018 the Urban Institute launched the Education Data Portal – a free one-stop shop for nearly all major national datasets on schools, districts and colleges in the United States. The goal of the portal is to make the large amounts of education data published each year more accessible by centralizing and standardizing this information over time and across sources. As a result, users can spend less time finding and wrangling data and more time leveraging data to answer the questions that matter to them. Click to learn more about Tyagi’s work and the power of this amazing tool!
In case you were lounging on the beach last June and missed the latest Storybench content.. here’s one from the vault you may have missed, but is definitely worth a read.
Chai Jing is the kind of journalist who believes that her role is to uncover, not to act. And her impressive career is a testament to the power of just that mentality. Jing is one of the most prominent figures in Chinese investigative journalism. She now lives in Spain after her blockbuster documentary “Under the Dome” which exposed the true magnitude of the air pollution crisis in northern China and the ineffectiveness of the country’s environmental regulations.
Jing’s 2012 memoir, “Seeing,” translated into English in 2023, has been distributed in the millions since 2013. Both the book, and her journey as a whole in investigative journalism inspired an entire generation of young Chinese journalists who dreamed of affecting positive social change through journalism.
We got to sit down (virtually) with her, to talk about the role of journalism today, and so much more. Take a look!
PHOTO OF THE WEEK 📷
In honor of the first real snow of 2025, here’s a snapshot from downtown.
And for those fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to have a driveway… Happy shoveling to all and to all a good night ! [ 📷: @marian_siljeholm_photography ]
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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