Ben Welsh

🌡️ In less than a lifetime, heat waves have evolved from sporadic, isolated episodes to massive, cascading weather events that can blanket vast swaths of the planet for months or even years at a time.

Here's the latest lesson plan from "Truth-Telling 101," the introduction to data journalism I'm teaching at the School of Visual Arts. https://palewi.re/docs/truth-telling-101/weeks/week-4/

It features my sermon on "working from the outside in," a tried-and-true approach enshrined in the wake of Watergate. https://palewi.re/docs/sva-dvc-3342a-slide-deck/lectures/peeling-the-onion/

We were also joined by our second guest of the semester, Haidee Chu of The City Reporter. https://www.thecityreporter.nyc/author/haidee/ She shared how her team combined careful data analysis with on-the-ground reporting to map out ICE's activity in New York.

🌡️ Tune in to this week's edition of "On Assignment," where Maurice Tamman and I discuss our work analyzing the growing threat of supersized heat waves. https://youtu.be/MyS9pG3hAGs?si=gcoT0lTVWBqT82eD

Our very own Casey Miller is at #nacis26 today presenting on the open-source map stack at Reuters. https://nacis2026.sched.com/event/2RDAD

One fruit of that: Shake-and-bake maps in our open-source component library, which allows our graphics desk to quickly crack out a map that meets our standards https://reuters-graphics.github.io/graphics-components/?path=/docs/compositions-map-with-a-legend--docs

At #NACIS26? What to learn more. Find her!

Here's the latest lesson plan from "Truth-Telling 101," the introduction to data journalism I'm teaching at the School of Visual Arts.

Whether she self-identifies as a data journalist or not, that was Lerner displaying the data state of mind I’ve promoted in class. https://palewi.re/docs/truth-telling-101/weeks/week-1/

palewi.reCalculating context | Truth-Telling 101: How New York's leading newsrooms turn raw data into compelling journalismHow demographic data can be used to enrich understanding

You can follow in her footsteps by merging an updated version of the city’s COVID statistics with Census data to see if the trend identified early on in the coronavirus story held up over time. https://palewi.re/docs/truth-telling-101/weeks/week-3/

Here's the latest lesson plan from "Truth-Telling 101," the introduction to data journalism I'm teaching at the School of Visual Arts.

The author of the piece, Sharon Lerner, told me definitively: “I’m not a data journalist.” But she was interested in the disparities public health scientists measured and curious about how the city’s vital statistics reports could cover them.

When a mysterious new virus swept across the city, she sensed that the moment had come to put that data to work.

Here's the latest lesson plan from "Truth-Telling 101," the introduction to data journalism I'm teaching at the School of Visual Arts.

palewi.reCalculating context | Truth-Telling 101: How New York's leading newsrooms turn raw data into compelling journalismHow demographic data can be used to enrich understanding

The step-by-step guide, now open to anyone, walks through how journalists merge in outside datasets to introduce context that’s missing from your primary source. https://palewi.re/docs/truth-telling-101/weeks/week-3/

Our inspiration: This Intercept story about the stark economic divide in New York City's coronavirus cases, published in the earliest days of the pandemic. https://theintercept.com/2020/04/09/nyc-coronavirus-deaths-race-economic-divide/

So many people were involved in the assembly of this work that I won't even try to name them all here. It's humbling to work at an institution this ambitious.

And I'm grateful that they let the nerds take a big swing every once in a while. That's what drew me to data journalism in the first place.

You can learn more about our approach by reading Mo's essay about his inspiration. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/climate-heatstorms-methodology/

github.comGitHub - palewire/reuters-temperature-storms: How to calculate the supersized heat waves tracked by the Reuters Climate MonitorHow to calculate the supersized heat waves tracked by the Reuters Climate Monitor - palewire/reuters-temperature-storms

I've posted the crucial portions of the code and data behind the analysis on GitHub. https://github.com/palewire/reuters-temperature-storms

Making sense of that unfolding story is what inspired us earlier this summer to launch the Reuters Climate Monitor, a live data dashboard that aims to track the slow-moving impact of climate change at the speed of the news. https://www.reuters.com/graphics/CLIMATE-AUTOMATED/MONITOR/akpeykqqapr/

Today, it expands to include a new page focused on heat storms, where we will track their sweep and scale in real time. https://www.reuters.com/graphics/CLIMATE-AUTOMATED/MONITOR/akpeykqqapr/heat-storms/

This is the first in a series exploring the increasing impact of extreme heat. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/section/heatstorms/

As we've followed the data out into the world, it's become clear to me that global warming is no longer some scientist's theory about a far-off future. It's a present reality that we can all see and feel.

That's the subject of a special report published today by Reuters. We unpack our analysis and, with a team of reporters all around the world, tell the story of Vera, the biggest heat storm on record.

Read it now at https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/climate-heatstorms-science/

To understand the new reality, Maurice Tamman and I consulted with two dozen meteorologists and climate researchers – and analyzed temperatures for every hour of every day since 1960 for more than one million grid squares covering the entire globe.

From those results, we developed a new concept: the “heat storm.”

To continue calling such sprawling phenomena heat waves would be like calling a monsoon a rain shower.

Here's the latest lesson plan from "Truth-Telling 101," the introduction to data journalism I'm teaching at the School of Visual Arts.

You’ll do all that using Google Sheets, the same free spreadsheet tool that Brand used for his analysis. No fancy programming language or LLM tokens needed. “There’s a lot you can do with Google Sheets,” Brand told me. “You can start small and it gives you the foundation.”

We were also joined by our first guest of the semester, WSJ reporter Caitlin Ostroff. She shared the inside story of how her team used spreadsheets and a "database state of mind" to put together this wild Polymarket investigation […] [Original post on mastodon.palewi.re]

Here's the latest lesson plan from "Truth-Telling 101," the introduction to data journalism I'm teaching at the School of Visual Arts.

palewi.reInterviewing data | Truth-Telling 101: How New York's leading newsrooms turn raw data into compelling journalismHow journalists use spreadsheets to ask and answer questions

The step-by-step guide, now open to anyone, walks through how journalists use sorts, filters and pivots to interview public data and turn numbers into news. https://palewi.re/docs/truth-telling-101/weeks/week-2/

Our inspiration: This WNYC story about the rebound in eviction rates across the five boroughs, authored by the public media outlet’s housing reporter, David Brand. https://gothamist.com/news/more-than-8k-nyc-renters-evicted-so-far-this-year-as-affordability-crisis-grows

🔬 Last night on East 21st Street, we kicked off the first edition of "Truth-Telling 101," the introduction to data journalism I'm teaching this fall at the School of Visual Arts.

I am hopeful that will lower barriers to entry and allow journalists to spend more time struggling with what really matters: thinking clearly, asking better questions, developing new knowledge and exploring the real-world significance of our findings.

Do you agree with me? Am I totally nuts? If you're a working data journalist, I'd love to hear how you see AI changing your practice of our shared vocation.

🔬 Last night on East 21st Street, we kicked off the first edition of "Truth-Telling 101," the introduction to data journalism I'm teaching this fall at the School of Visual Arts.

You can find the whole thing, which includes a dissection of a recent story I published for Reuters, at https://palewi.re/docs/sva-dvc-3342a-slide-deck/lectures/social-science-in-a-hurry/

In this new era, where AI can handle almost all computer programming tasks, the technical aspects of data journalism have never been easier to execute.

🔬 Last night on East 21st Street, we kicked off the first edition of "Truth-Telling 101," the introduction to data journalism I'm teaching this fall at the School of Visual Arts.

palewi.reTruth-Telling 101: Artists Meet Data Journalism | SVA Continuing EducationThe Fall 2026 syllabus for Ben Welsh’s six-week, in-person data journalism course at the School of Visual Arts.

Today, I'm opening up our materials to anyone interested, anywhere in the world. After we finish each Monday, I will post the lesson to our syllabus site at https://palewi.re/docs/truth-telling-101/

My first lecture, titled "Social Science in a Hurry," was an (oversimplified) overview of the history of the craft, followed by a focus on the skills I see as essential to the work.

🔬 Last night on East 21st Street, we kicked off the first edition of "Truth-Telling 101," the introduction to data journalism I'm teaching this fall at the School of Visual Arts.