Spooks, Scripts & Scary Stats: A Storybench Halloween Special 🎃💻

Hello Benchies!

It’s Halloween, and the ghosts of data past are here to haunt your feed. 👻 

This week, we’re uncovering spooky stats behind cinema’s creepiest villains, learning how to dig up deleted web pages (no Ouija board required), and taking a look at some hauntingly beautiful fall photos from the DMV. Plus, our “From the Vault” section resurrects a couple of classics from the Storybench archives, because who doesn’t love a good throwback on a night like this? 

Let’s get into the treats (and a few tricks). 🎃

Here is our featured content this week:

🎃🔪 Scary Stats: Why Some of Horror’s Most Iconic Villains Have Limited Screen Time

Our own MariCarmen Mosso, a movie lover, discovers that legendary horror killers like Ghostface, Michael Myers and Pennywise spend surprisingly little time on screen, but their impact looms large. For example, Ghostface appears for just 5.4 % of the runtime in the original Scream (1996). Their short presence fuels mystery, fear and cult status—just in time for Halloween. Click here for more!

🧙‍♂️💻 How to Use Python to Scrape for Deleted Government Web Pages

Ready for a behind-the-scenes investigative trick? This Storybench tutorial walks you through how to use Python (with tools like Requests, BeautifulSoup and Wackbackpy) to unearth web pages the Trump administration took down. If you’re looking to dig into data-journalism Halloween style—think “web pages that disappeared”—this one’s for you.

Cool Stuff Corner: What are we reading?

🧬🔎 Post Local reader photos: Halloween and the White House East Wing

In an interactive gallery from The Washington Post, locals from Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia submitted photos celebrating autumn’s return — from misty marsh sunrises to creative Halloween displays and reflections on the White House’s East Wing. The collection shows how everyday beauty, personal moments and seasonal change resonate in communities across the DMV.

From the Vault🏛️

🏛️📊Here’s a look inside the data team at the Associated Press

How does The Associated Press weave data into its daily reporting? Four members of the AP’s data team walk Storybench through how they collaborate with journalists, visualize complex information and build tools that make coverage faster and more accurate. Offering a peek into the team’s “Hack Day,” giving us the chance to look at where experimentation drives innovation in newsroom workflows. Read here

💻📈How to download YouTube data in R using “tuber” and “purrr”

This screenshot-driven tutorial makes learning data scraping approachable for beginners. It walks readers through using R packages tuber and purrr to collect YouTube metadata, views, likes, dislikes and comments, and visualize engagement patterns. Clear visuals and concise instructions make it an ideal starting point for journalists exploring data-driven storytelling. One click away!

PHOTO OF THE WEEK 📷

From all the times you’ve brushed shoulders with witches in Salem (or maybe even your office 👀), you’ll know the spell of the season is real. 

Don’t forget to wander through Beacon Hill and spot spooky setups like this one on Mount Vernon Street — perfect for your next ghostly Instagram post.

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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