Amanda Cox reflects on her career path from the New York Times to Bloomberg News, highlighting her efforts to make data more accessible and meaningful through journalism. We dive into the shifts in data journalism—from scarce print real estate to the rise of AI tools—and how these transitions affect newsroom priorities, audience interaction, and storytelling techniques. Amanda emphasizes the importance of reducing friction for domain experts and considers the future implications of AI in data analysis and design.
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Transcript
00:02.55
Jon
Hi Amanda, long time no see.
00:03.51
Amanda
Hey, John. Good to see you again.
00:07.19
Jon
Yeah, and you have a great view behind you. And now I see the fairies going.
00:12.07
Amanda
It’s classic New York.
00:13.65
Jon
It really is.
00:15.38
Amanda
and really
00:17.04
Jon
Um so it’s been a while since we since we chatted and um you uh I think since we last last time we spoke you’re at the Times and then you went to USA Facts and now you’re at Bloomberg so I thought we would start by maybe just talking about what you’ve been doing since leaving the Times if you want to talk a little about a little bit about USA Facts and then we can talk about your team at Bloomberg.
00:38.31
Amanda
Sure. Uh, so you are right that when they left the New York Times, uh, I joined this little organization in Seattle called USA facts, uh, which is a Steve Palmer endeavor whose mission is to make government data more accessible.
00:39.48
Jon
great
00:54.23
Amanda
Um, he thought government data was too hard to access and answering some of the questions he had about his own like, uh, opportunities in the world about like, you know, kind of connected to some of this philanthropic ideas about like,
01:06.96
Amanda
What are the gaps? Where could my money do the but most good? Whatever.
01:10.21
Jon
Yeah.
01:10.63
Amanda
And so ah set up this little legal organization trying to make trying to make that data easier to access and and to find for people. And so I went out there and spent a little bit of time about a year and a half um setting up a team to do some more advanced visualization capabilities there.
01:27.78
Amanda
um And then ah Not super long into that, um I got a call from Bloomberg that said, ah we are going to do a massive expansion in our data journalism, data visualization, and associated efforts. We’re going to hire 50 new people. Do you want to come help lead that?
01:46.64
Amanda
um And that was ah a little bit interesting to me. And so I, i a after many months of talking about that with Bloomberg, joined Bloomberg to help run what are called the data journalism teams there. And it’s distinct from Data Vis and Bloomberg Structure. So it’s more people who are doing ah Reporting around data analysis with data, I work with a couple of different teams. One of them is mainly focused on investigative projects. um One of them brings kind of top-tier engineering talent um to to newsroom, journals on stories. um And then one of them does some of those things and works on you know shorter-term um you know stories that don’t necessarily have an accountability angle or it’s just news stories. right so
02:33.52
Jon
Right.
02:33.60
Amanda
um Data journals and at Bloomberg is my is my remit now Yeah, um my you know the team that I worked on and you know, it doesn’t ah
02:37.88
Jon
Nice. um Let’s talk about USA facts for just a second. So were you working on the data collection side or was there like a team doing that and you’re on the more dissemination journalism communicating side?
03:00.48
Amanda
was just a little you know we’re trying to figure it out trying to figure out what makes sense at this organization really and so we were doing uh kind of i think there the nomenclature is special projects which is like a ah ah word that i have come to think like i don’t actually like it because i like when you’re like core to the institution right like it when it’s ah you know in the same way i think that like you know if you don’t have the staff on weekends and holidays in the news organization you’re not actually part of like a news organization you know right like you’re that sort of you know like if you could just like axe it and it doesn’t matter then it like doesn’t really matter but
03:03.51
Jon
Yeah.
03:16.67
Jon
Yeah, yeah.
03:24.59
Jon
Yeah.
03:29.05
Amanda
Anyway, but so we were, you know, some, sometimes collecting our own data, especially because ah sometimes I think the coolest data, you know, you don’t get it.
03:40.20
Amanda
ah You know, it doesn’t come in like a one click download or it doesn’t come with an ingestion system like it actually requires some reporting like there’s a project that I was fond of that
03:46.21
Jon
yeah
03:48.44
Amanda
ah You know, it was a puzzle. At this point in time, it was still a little bit of a puzzle why, uh, why car thefts were rising so much in in the time when other types of crime wasn’t, wasn’t really rising. So like murders were going down a little bit, robberies were going down a little bit, car thefts were up like 20%. I forget what year this is 2020. And, uh, police departments have this data by, uh,
04:14.74
Amanda
You know, so we got some clues that it was about Kia and Handais being stolen with USB ports, right? Like there is a TikTok trend that that people thought like in there.
04:21.97
Jon
Oh, right. Yeah.
04:24.65
Amanda
So, but that data by making them out, like the insurance and groups had it, but like it wasn’t part of real government data, except you could ask police departments for it and they would give it to you.
04:24.67
Jon
Yeah. honey know
04:34.27
Amanda
So like, you know, one of the projects that I feel like I left most fond of there was just like the brute force, like let’s just ask 50 police departments for this data. And so like in in that part,
04:43.11
Jon
Yeah.
04:44.27
Amanda
It’s a very long way to say that like we did some of our own collection slash ingestion, but not in the way that like of the like bulk scaling that USA Facts really dreams about doing.
04:50.03
Jon
ah
04:54.65
Jon
Sure. Right. Yeah. Yeah, it’s it is ah interesting, particularly and in our current a climate around federal data, which we can talk about in a second. How do you make data easier, more useful. I kind of feel like data dot.gov was the first effort to do this, um but there’s just so much of it. it’s ah It’s a really hard problem, a real hard nut to crack. um So, okay, so let’s turn to to Bloomberg. So, um how does the new…
05:28.59
Jon
I guess I’m curious about how like your new team does it expand, extend, broaden what Bloomberg was doing sort of before. Like what is the expand, what is the goal of that bigger team?
05:41.68
Amanda
Yeah, I mean, it’s, you know, more, better, faster, those sort of, those sort of goals.
05:45.11
Jon
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
05:46.80
Amanda
um And we do, you know, Bloomberg has people, ah you know, like my colleague, David Ingold, who’s been doing data journalism at Bloomberg for more than a decade.
05:47.19
Jon
Yeah.
05:56.24
Amanda
But it’s about, you know, turning his team from a three person endeavor to a 12 person endeavor around the world, right? Like that sort of, ah like, I think, you know, more smarter,
06:03.86
Jon
here
06:09.43
Amanda
ah is sort of the though the big sort of levers of expansion.
06:13.07
Jon
Yeah.
06:14.51
Amanda
Break more news, that kind of kind of idea.
06:17.26
Jon
Yeah, it’s it is interesting how, well, let me ask you this way. Like you’ve been doing data journalism a long time. Like, well, not too long. Let’s not age ourselves too much, but like.
06:26.47
Amanda
It’s a long time, it’s a long time.
06:27.85
Jon
A long time. So like, what are the big, like, do you view that we can start here, but like, do you view this expansion as like a kind of like ah odd or massive change in the way media works? Like you don’t hear about a lot of places expanding their graphics desks anymore.
06:46.22
Amanda
Is that true? I don’t know. Maybe that’s true. Um, you know, I think the times
06:49.67
Jon
I don’t know. Maybe I only read like the times in the post and like, yeah.
06:54.22
Amanda
graphics department has gotten quite large, right? Like in my era, it was like 25 people and now I think it’s like closer to 50. So like I, that could be lies.
07:01.32
Jon
Yeah.
07:02.46
Amanda
Don’t like, I haven’t been there in years now, but, um, the, uh,
07:04.65
Jon
Right.
07:11.09
Amanda
you I think ah Bloomberg data is at the core of its identity. And so there are questions about like, why are we not the best in the world of this in our newsroom capacity, right? like Which is quite different from a lot of other people’s jobs at Bloomberg, from this giant organization that like
07:25.62
Jon
Right.
07:25.81
Amanda
you know You trade your assets, and you monitor a law, and you do all kinds of things on your bluebird terminal.
07:28.80
Jon
Yeah.
07:31.65
Jon
Yeah.
07:32.18
Amanda
But like you know why the quick I do think there was some question about like given what bluebird is and what it wants to be in the space of data, like why are we not, you know we should have more of this and we should be better at it.
07:44.37
Amanda
It’s sort of the you know is is a thinking behind that expansion.
07:47.99
Jon
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, that makes sense. I mean, they do have, they are pulling in, I mean, they are ingesting like a ton of data, right? And they are the best at it probably in in the world. Um,
07:59.39
Jon
So in, so then a broader question for you, like in your work, like what are some of the biggest changes you’ve seen in the world of data journalism?
08:12.89
Amanda
Yeah, I mean, if you define data journalism more broadly than in my current job title, but to like include the world of like database in news media.
08:23.04
Jon
Yeah.
08:23.26
Amanda
um I do, you know, I have sometimes thought about changes in terms of, or I like to think about it, and I know that you were an economist, so you’ll like this too, um is in terms of like, what is the scarce resource?
08:35.28
Amanda
um So when I started, forever ago, the scarce resource was really front page print columns, right?
08:35.47
Jon
Yeah.
08:41.55
Amanda
Like there’s only, in the New York Times, there’s an organization, it’s putting out one front page a day, there’s only so much space on it, like, you know, like whatever.
08:47.97
Jon
yeah
08:49.57
Amanda
Um, then I think there was an era where the scarce resource, you know, the thing that you had to fight hardest for to get or to save for your best ideas or sometimes just use as signaling that this is the thing that we care about most because, you know, what do you spend your scarce resource on?
09:04.14
Amanda
It’s the thing that it was a web talent for a while, right? Like these were not jobs who had, uh, the world’s best, uh,
09:06.65
Jon
here Right.
09:10.75
Amanda
ah developers and engineers and thinkers about what the possibilities are on the web. So like those people, ah but the people who are amazing at that and best in the world at that, they were rare and special. And you saved them for received them for rare and special things.
09:24.81
Amanda
um as that And that was a fun era because I feel like it was new and it’s always fun when you are like kind of making the rules of the game, or at least it’s fun to meet. I’ve come to realize that, but I like it when the like game’s not established enough that you get to like, you you know but who who decides who wins?
09:41.24
Amanda
It’s like, well, I decide who I win. I decide who the rules are.
09:44.56
Jon
yeah
09:45.32
Amanda
So first scarce is ah ah ah front page space, physical space in a print pi product. Next era of scarcity is
09:53.08
Jon
Right.
09:56.58
Amanda
ah technical skills like how what can we do on on the internet and like in things that were not even possible in print because you’re you know starting to think and then after that you but that got more a you know like that work was popular so people hire more people who could do that it got a lot easier to the frameworks in the world have made some of that work a ton easier like you know like I am old enough that like
10:14.46
Jon
Yeah.
10:21.04
Amanda
I remember a time when making a counting map was hard. And now I often say that like, you know, and it could teach any eighth grader how to make a counting map this afternoon. And like, you know, right like i so like the the tech improvement has about that.
10:28.72
Jon
Right. Yeah.
10:31.60
Amanda
And then there was a year like, what what is most special at the time for a little bit was like, these things that were called like panel eights, which are like eight pages of print, right? Like they would, cause it was like the front page, especially in the COVID era.
10:44.26
Amanda
And they would put a chart on that like every single day and not even a good chart, right?
10:46.86
Jon
Yeah.
10:47.54
Amanda
Like not every day, but like, you know, they would put a four by six like giant terrible chart with like nothing really behind it on it.
10:48.34
Jon
Yeah.
10:51.41
Jon
Yeah.
10:53.81
Amanda
Like, so that, you know, it was no longer print, but it was like big print, right? pink Print that is so expansive. I can’t, uh, you know, I can’t express my idea even though a whole page of newsprint, I need eight pages of newsprint back to back that I unfold them to express my idea.
11:05.59
Jon
Yeah, right.
11:08.32
Amanda
And I think that’s related to like some of the the other changes um in the work in that like part of that, I think, at least in part is a semi like a reaction from mobile, right? Like what’s the opposite of eight pages of newsprint where I’m really working about hierarchy and how things like pull together.
11:20.56
Jon
Right. Yeah.
11:23.89
Amanda
ah and And that is not to say like, I do not believe mobiles are so limiting, right? Like I think Sometimes we think the era of interactivity was was killed by mobile, except people who are really good at mobile and interactivity have changed the world, right?
11:41.81
Amanda
Like people buy houses on mobile phones.
11:42.35
Jon
will
11:44.69
Amanda
People like start relationships on mobile phones. Like those are both like interact, you know, people who get driving directions on mobile phones. Like they’re very, it’s like if you do it right, it is actually, your mobile screen is actually a very expressive medium, but if you do it like Wrong or isn’t in that a data patient like it’s just a different set of skills And so, you know, I think of that I think of that scared You know the changing thing of what is scarce whether it’s about a specific type of sprint space is whether it’s about ability to do things online whether it’s about ability to know how to use the space that like your audience is going to encounter and I think that is one of the evolutions that that I have seen in this kind of
12:04.50
Jon
Right.
12:25.22
Amanda
game more broadly defined, especially to include the include the visualization part.
12:30.29
Jon
Yeah, yeah, that that that’s a really interesting take on the on the evolution. What do you see? I mean, if you if you knew this, you’d be a ah gazillionaire. But like, what do you see is like the next or or maybe a better way to put this like, where is your team sort of moving now looking ahead?
12:54.31
Amanda
Yeah. I mean, there is this question, you know, like the sort of, uh, the era of data is that I think that I was best at, like, you know, the, in the, the, I define the rule sort of era that year is over.
13:06.46
Jon
Yeah. Yeah.
13:06.98
Amanda
It’s gone, right? Like it is killed by TikTok.
13:07.69
Jon
Yeah.
13:09.11
Amanda
Uh, you know, it’s like these people do not want to consume information in the way it’s not even, you know, pick up, but as a, like a short form video is like, um, ah yeah like that’s not a game I am good at, but I do think there are ways the world has changed.
13:09.41
Jon
Yeah.
13:16.06
Jon
Right.
13:18.59
Jon
Yeah.
13:20.97
Amanda
Like, you know, I am currently. i probably too bought into the hype of AI. I think it’s changing our work. I think it’s changing what’s possible. I think it art has already changed that in like ability to unlock things at quick speed that have some like semi-structured things. I think, you know, I i to the annoyance of some of my colleagues, i am I’ve bought into the hype. right like i am i am i’ve completely like I think the world has changed in the last two years under our feet and like only 5% of the world knows it and I am like one of you know i’m a crazy person in that space, but I think it’s like unimaginable that that space will not or should not change change this type of work.
14:07.52
Jon
yeah
14:08.54
Amanda
Even for other stuff too, like even on the vis side, like i I completely believe that there’s a really interesting dance that goes on between like text and design options and data choices in visualization.
14:08.61
Jon
want
14:25.26
Amanda
and that like Defining two of those should get you like getting the third one almost
14:28.10
Jon
Yeah.
14:30.32
Amanda
automatically in smart ways and there’s a ton of people I believe who like want to be better designers and want to make charts with points like as you you know as you know in your book and like
14:30.52
Jon
Mm hmm.
14:40.80
Amanda
Like they wreck, you know, it’s one of the, like, I recognize my work is bad and I just don’t know how to make it better. And I do think that we are in the cusp of an era where you can just say, make it, I’m trying to emphasize this, make it better, and you know, make it, in or, you know, and, and worry about, worry about the medium that is going, here’s the annotations I want to put on.
14:46.05
Jon
Yeah. Yeah, make it right.
15:01.84
Amanda
ah They need to work on mobile, like do your best, right? Like I think that is a challenge that should be, should be easier by now.
15:05.23
Jon
Yeah.
15:09.56
Amanda
in terms of like what is new or going.
15:09.72
Jon
Yeah.
15:11.68
Amanda
But also some of what is new is also what is old, which is like use use this work to break news and figure out stuff about the world that you couldn’t figure out in any other way.
15:22.23
Amanda
like Some of this stuff is like ah you know specific web frameworks. I’m not going to last. But that core value of like we are doing this work to get to a headline.
15:33.16
Amanda
We are doing this work that is immutable.
15:38.15
Jon
yeah do i wonder do you view it as as potentially problematic in the sense that do we want to get make tools that anybody can do the entire process of data ingestion, analysis, and visualization? Or do you still think that you know you kind of do need to know some core things about data and about analysis and about statistics? Or it do you think it is going to be sufficient to ask the AI tool to kind of do that process for us?
16:16.15
Amanda
I’m a believer in democratization, right? like Like, you know, even that, like, silly county map example, though, like, I want more people with real domain expertise, ah feeling like they can get their ideas done with um very little friction.
16:18.90
Jon
know
16:22.05
Jon
yeah
16:31.85
Amanda
Like, I’m a total believer in that. Like, are there ah stupid things you can do with data? Sure. But there are stupid things you can do without data too. So like, I don’t view like, you I don’t feel like it’s a one path, like,
16:40.89
Jon
but
16:45.80
Amanda
is dangerous and One Path is not dangerous in a way.
16:48.31
Jon
Yeah.
16:48.64
Amanda
of like But i do I am a believer that like a I’m a total believer in domain job ah domain knowledge.
16:49.14
Jon
Yeah. Yeah.
16:55.20
Amanda
People who know stuff about subjects, they’re going to ask better questions, they’re going to notice better anomalies.
16:55.79
Jon
Mm hmm.
17:00.64
Amanda
And so like I’m a complete believer in ah reducing friction for people with domain knowledge.
17:08.79
Jon
Okay. Yeah, I’m with you. I mean, it’s the reason why I like the tool Canva, right? Because like I’m not a designer, but it it lowers that barrier. Even on simple things like resizing designs really quickly be for different uses.
17:23.61
Jon
It just, it just democratizes design in a way because I’m not a designer.
17:26.34
Amanda
Hmm.
17:28.16
Jon
And I’m sure there’s lots of designers who hate these tools um because it potentially, you know,
17:30.95
Amanda
Sure.
17:34.15
Jon
takes money out of their hands or you know work out of their hands but um uh not ever right yeah right exactly yeah right yeah yeah yeah
17:39.48
Amanda
or you see it, right? Like you don’t get the true greatness, but like there’s lots of work that happens in the world that is like 80% greatness is good enough or 80% goodness is is good enough, right? like and And there is still room for true greatness, right? Like there is totally room for, and I think the true greatness stands out even more in a way, but yeah.
17:58.84
Jon
Yeah, um so this is ah my observation of of the evolution in the last, I’d say, you know, 10, 15 years maybe of DataViz, is that, you know, up until a certain point, everything was static. You know, we had flash, but like everything sort of popular was static. And then like D3 and other open source tools kind of came out and like everything was interactive, right? You could click on every bar chart and every line chart and there was a pop-up and a hover. And then there seemed to be this big pullback um maybe because people realize it’s hard to do with the mobile versus print versus desktop was sort of like really expensive hard to do is that is do you agree with that is that how the sort of pattern that you saw
18:43.27
Amanda
I do agree with that. I do think I would note you know the era when everything was interactive was not a good era. right and when you when i actually when you know Sometimes when I look back on some of my own work from that era, the version that holds up or comes comes closer to holding up is the mobile version.
19:03.45
Amanda
where more editing was required, even at the time, I think I hated it, right?
19:06.30
Jon
and Yeah.
19:08.13
Amanda
It was like, why would I bother, like, whatever. But I think it is especially coming at it from a journalism space, it’s really some of it. a is about you know where we are not great like UI designers, basically.
19:24.86
Amanda
And so we’re pushing work onto people to be like, you know I sometimes talk about it.
19:25.28
Jon
you Yeah.
19:28.78
Amanda
It’s like, that here is some data. I hope you find something interesting. um that kind of like you know That is not actually doing like real journalism. Other than in specialized cases, like I do think there are some cases where like ah just opening up that access to people is helpful and good work.
19:43.96
Amanda
And so like there’s no blanket statements about what is right or was right or wrong in any of this, but I would I would in general agree with your assessment. I also think I think it has made it way harder for people in some ways getting into the work.
20:06.31
Amanda
Because when I started, like I was making bar you know bar charts and line charts for print. And that work is like very easy to edit.
20:11.95
Jon
Right.
20:13.99
Amanda
It’s very easy to train on. It’s very easy to say, OK, you were not good at this. And then but and there was like one version of it. There was one size of it. It was a static file.
20:21.79
Jon
Yeah.
20:22.32
Amanda
it went with It’s much harder to edit work first from someone who’s young and new at this. like I would not be successful in the current like environment of like Make something on the internet and like parts of it move and like your editor doesn’t necessarily even know how to edit it and there’s like infinite ah like possibilities of how the all the parameters would go together I do think like a There is something we I think Collectively like a grappling with like how do people learn how to do this work anymore?
20:51.08
Amanda
Like when the on-ramp like the on-ramp has gotten just a lot a lot harder, I think
20:54.75
Jon
Yeah.
20:55.37
Amanda
Even though, you know, the also because, you know, more people are doing the work and it’s like more well known even as like a possible career, you know, the pool of people like possibly interested in it is much larger. So like that that talent goes up, but the introductory degree of like difficulty and like intro work, I think it’s gotten so much harder.
21:14.31
Jon
yeah Um, so, so on that, I wanted to ask, uh, I had a discussion with a grad student yesterday who’s you know sort of getting towards the end of their program and interested in journalism and data and data visualization and sort of trying to figure out like what is the right, or what not the right path, but what is our path.
21:31.54
Amanda
Sure.
21:32.61
Jon
And I’m curious what you would say to that student, not so much on the technical skills, right? Like, yeah, go learn this tool or that tool. But like, what are maybe the soft skills or the traits that you look for? You know, I’ll make it a little more concrete. Someone applies for a job on your team. Like, what are the soft skills or what are the intangibles that you’re looking for um for people trying to enter the and enter this particular area?
22:03.58
Amanda
Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things that I admire most about journalism as a field is that it’s a clips based hiring process. Like, you know, I’m someone who, you know, come up with a year of doing a whole bunch of hiring, and I really don’t care where you went to college or if you went to college, honestly, like, but I do care about seeing work that demonstrates your ability to master some subject master.
22:19.81
Jon
Yeah.
22:29.21
Amanda
some domain of expertise, some command of some subject matter, that you’re brimming with ideas and coming at things with curiosity and able and want to get past weird roadblocks that you didn’t have a sense of that you were going to get past.
22:32.59
Jon
Yeah.
22:48.53
Amanda
And then there’s a bunch of ways to win. There are people who win at this game by being really excellent traditional reporters. There are people who win at the game by being having top-notch textiles and ability to turn other people’s you know ability to translate you know other people’s ideas into tractable things is one ah one way that people win.
23:09.95
Jon
Yeah.
23:13.41
Amanda
um Some people win by just being like super pleasant to work with or enthusiastic about about things.
23:19.66
Jon
Yeah.
23:19.72
Amanda
you right like and so yeah i i don’t think you know I think there’s a ton of ways to win, but the goal is like
23:20.81
Jon
Yeah.
23:25.32
Amanda
You’ve got to publish something and you want to publish something that breaks news and feels smart. And you know it feels like you are ah figuring out stuff about the world. And in in in all of those things, I believe that the real scarce skill has nothing to do with technical skills.
23:42.54
Amanda
It’s about ability to identify good questions. right like It’s about ability to decide, let us point all of our energy at that.
23:45.74
Jon
Mm.
23:50.56
Amanda
That is something that like seems like it could pay off.
23:54.72
Jon
Yeah, it’s funny hearing you talk about this because I’m in the stage. My daughter’s a senior in high school, so we’re in that sort of college application stage. And it’s very clear as we’re going through this process that what the schools look for now is different than when I was applying for school. When I was applying for school, it was like, how many clubs were you in, right? It didn’t matter how invested you were or how like it was like raw quantity.
24:19.98
Jon
And they’re clearly now looking for quality. They want you to be invested in that thing, the thing that, you know, you’re passionate about the thing that makes you really, you know, sort of, I, maybe in their, in the college’s lingo, they would call it unique.
24:36.14
Jon
But like, what is that thing that really makes you passionate? It’s not about quantity. It’s more about quality and deepness. Um, whereas I kind of felt like when I was applying to school, it was like inch, mile wide, inch deep.
24:47.38
Amanda
jazz club or whatever, yeah.
24:48.31
Jon
Yeah. ah Yeah, it was like Film Club. I was ah i remember in high school being part of the Film Club and my mom would ask, do you you know you discuss the films? Do you debate them? I’m like, no, we just watch movies. like you know ah but So it it is interesting to hear you say that.
25:02.63
Jon
it It does sort of ring true of what I’ve been seeing on the you know the college application side that schools at least are looking for that depth, not necessarily the breadth.
25:14.61
Amanda
That’s interesting. yeah I should be careful too.
25:15.38
Jon
Yeah.
25:16.32
Amanda
right like I think I have been fortunate enough to work at some ah relatively snobby institution. So there are people like who would still care at other places. you know I do not speak for all of journalism when I say like it doesn’t matter if you go to college.
25:29.06
Amanda
right like That is totally untrue.
25:30.18
Jon
Oh, yeah.
25:30.42
Amanda
But like the idea about, where are you creating?
25:30.47
Jon
yeah
25:33.57
Amanda
And what are you really into? And have you can you demonstrate like enthusiasm and agency about something? ah and
25:39.10
Jon
Yeah, but but your point about being able to ask good questions, I think ah enables a person to be deep and have domain expertise, but also to be nimble and to sort of be able to be have domain expertise in some other area as well.
25:40.19
Amanda
like you
25:51.95
Amanda
Sure.
25:56.92
Amanda
Yeah. I mean, I think there are, there are journalists who are incredible at that. Like, you know, like you throw them in the field who they know nothing about. and they can find the five people who can make them want to like be helpful to them as sources because you know because they’re fun to talk to and they feel like you’re connecting ideas and you feel like you know there are people and like I that is you know uh doing it through reporting is less my own skill than like just being patient enough to read all the footnotes right like you know so there’s even in that like there’s a ton of different ways to play the game about like
26:11.26
Jon
Yeah. Right.
26:25.38
Jon
yeah right Yeah.
26:29.38
Amanda
How are you going to get to a level of expertise like fast? And like, it’s just like, what it what is what are you most really for?
26:37.45
Jon
So that was another question I i actually had for you. um Have you found the relationship between sort of a you know data, the data team, data journalism, whatever you want to call the team, ah the relationship between the sort of data teams and the kind of traditional reporters, journalists, has that relationship changed over time? And like, how has that changed? Or is it, or is it still like reporters go out in the field, they send stuff to you? Like, how has that evolved?
27:08.86
Amanda
yeah i mean I think one of the things that I was so lucky at when I was part of the Upshot at the New York Times, and I didn’t even realize like how lucky and rare it was in in real time, is that we were a team that had people who were traditional beat reporters with domain expertise and sources and cutting-edge ideas.
27:29.58
Amanda
and people with data visualization skills. And it was one team. like it The teams did not cross boundaries. And I think about this a lot.
27:35.62
Jon
Yeah.
27:36.84
Amanda
Boomer is a giant place with tons of resources, but also like because it is a giant place with tons of resources and many different kind of like semi-overlapping Venn diagrams, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about that.
27:47.86
Amanda
like How how do we make those team borders artificial and porous so that it feels like real collaboration in this work? And most people have no idea what I’m talking about.
27:59.94
Amanda
like i have I have a teammate who’s fantastic. who There’s this example that we’ve been fighting about for he a year. He was like, no, that was fantastic collaboration between between different people.
28:10.49
Amanda
And I was like, we’re on earth. are Have you ever worked on a the actual team where people like actually really like respected each other and were like playing that like yes and improv game and it felt safe and it like you know and knows and it was our end problem.
28:21.60
Jon
Right.
28:25.21
Amanda
That is the thing that I think the best work is and another the thing that I am pushing now at Bloomberg that it feels so much better
28:25.77
Jon
Yeah.
28:31.99
Amanda
when it’s our draft, like, you know, and our being the people who are making things across different different disciplines, different skills, whatever, because I do think there are things like for the best data visualization if for example, sometimes the reporting needs to be totally different.
28:35.09
Jon
Right.
28:46.99
Amanda
And there are tons of examples of this that make total sense about, you know, even if you’re thinking about like breaking new stuff, like there was a classic one, I think it was like the MH370, I think it is that plane crash where it was like, you know, it’s lost in the ocean,
29:00.25
Jon
Well.
29:02.68
Amanda
and youre And you want to know, like, what are people trying to do to figure out where this plane is? If you want to make a map, you want a map, you know, you get when you’re recording.
29:06.57
Jon
Right.
29:11.81
Amanda
and about a giant spreadsheet of wave heights and wind speeds located across these thousands of miles of ocean.
29:21.63
Jon
Yeah.
29:22.06
Amanda
Like your gig is a spreadsheet.
29:22.39
Jon
Yeah.
29:24.00
Amanda
If you’re a traditional reporter, ah you may be actually chasing exactly the same question, but like you don’t want your source to send you a gigabyte of spreadsheet data.
29:32.45
Jon
No, right. right
29:34.13
Amanda
like you know It’s like, just tell me what you see. What do you look at this data?
29:37.77
Jon
Yeah.
29:37.83
Amanda
like I don’t want to show it. And so I think you know the reporting like needs to be different ah to make the actual best stuff. And so what I think I’m trying to do and other people are trying to do is form little teams of people who recognize that, who want in on that, who recognize that.
29:55.01
Amanda
like like you know I think thes the other thing about it is bending, you know, the the other thing is the upshot that I took, you know, you didn’t realize it. I think I realized maybe a little bit at the time, but how special it was to be like, yeah, I’m going to write the lead of the story, taking in mind what the top graphic is.
30:14.60
Amanda
I’m going to make the top graphic figuring out what the lead is.
30:14.99
Jon
Yeah.
30:18.24
Amanda
And both of us might have to bend our match. Both of us might not do the thing that we would do if we were just doing it if we were playing our own game.
30:20.96
Jon
and yeah
30:27.66
Amanda
If this was a solo solo endeavor, I might make different choices.
30:28.44
Jon
Yeah.
30:31.42
Amanda
and But i yeah I think it’s interesting when both parties are willing to bandle alone and say like, okay, because we are because we are communicating with all of the tools at our disposal, which include words, which include ah visual patterns, which may include video or who knows what else.
30:51.12
Amanda
like
30:51.39
Jon
Yeah.
30:52.13
Amanda
how how do I think about how those things are coming together as opposed to like, okay, I made my word draft, can we insert some pictures into some some chunks of it? Like it’s just never gonna feel seamless.
31:04.17
Amanda
is already that
31:04.61
Jon
yeah Yeah, this is ah an issue that I face all the time, you know, how do you sort of bridge the gap between the communications sort of team or division or whatever, and the more analysts, researcher side, who oftentimes are kind of so often often talking past each other and maybe don’t necessarily um fully understand the skills and the pressures and the demands on on on either side. like do you Do you have a strategy when a reporter comes to you or you come to a reporter to sort of try to bring the two sides together?
31:47.07
Amanda
I mean, part of it is reps and trust. And part of it is, you know, figuring out ways to recognize competence and show up where people are like, yeah, this was better this way.
31:49.92
Jon
Yeah, yeah.
31:57.62
Amanda
Right. And so I think, you know, it’s machine.
31:58.77
Jon
yeah
32:00.20
Amanda
I have no magic answers ah to this question. And thats I think it’s probably the real answers depend a lot on who the people are and what their actual priorities are.
32:10.26
Amanda
And but I do think there is also some insistence on like, like, this is morning I was going on a rant about like,
32:10.70
Jon
yeah
32:17.81
Amanda
uh, if a draft exists and I can’t see it, like we’re not playing, right? Like this is not worth my talent, right?
32:21.79
Jon
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
32:22.98
Amanda
Like it’s so, uh, that, uh, kind of like insisting on being like, oh, we’re in this game together. And like, you may have completely different priorities than I have, but if we want to actually make it fun, like we’re getting both going to have to like show up with some level of ownership.
32:37.33
Amanda
Uh, like I’m very like anti that conveyor about like in this situation, you can be a subscriber. It’s like here I’ve written my blog post and it uses words that like no regular human is going to understand. I top it over the fence to my communications people.
32:47.20
Jon
Yeah.
32:49.42
Amanda
They either water it down or do whatever they, you know, like that’s not fun for anyone.
32:49.46
Jon
Yeah.
32:53.13
Amanda
Right.
32:53.25
Jon
Yeah, right. Yeah. Well, on that note of fun, it’s been great. It’s great to see you again. um Welcome back to the States. um and And yeah, thanks so much for coming on the show.
33:05.25
Amanda
Sure. Thanks for having me.