Crime stats lie, a lot, and that is usually by design

Every year Big Brother contestants agree to be totally isolated from society for the duration of the season. This means they miss major news events.  On rare occasions producers break the cardinal rule and reveal really important information, like the September 11 attacks, the presidential election results, and the COVID-19 outbreak (which ramped up during […]

Interactive black history project shows how America’s love for black culture, but not black people, has erased African Americans’ role in pioneering American music.

If it weren’t for the data viz and visual storytelling of the last decade, journalism might be dead. Shortly before the start of 2010 the future of journalism looked grim. Newspaper readership was shifting, ad revenue was tanking, and jobs were being cut. Several papers filed for bankruptcy, while newspaper stocks sank. The so-called Digital […]

After three uncomfortable experiences at Walgreens drugstores it’s time to think about racial profiling and when to draw a line.

A college friend started a company that helps children learn to code under the philosophy that coding is set to be the fourth R of education (reading, writing, arithmetic and “algorithms”). I believe it.

When president John F. Kennedy saw the front page of the New York Times May 4, 1963, he said the images made him “sick.” Pictures and recordings of African-American children in Birmingham, Alabama being mauled by police dogs and hosed down by members of the local fire department were making their way across the world. […]