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Before this year comes, at long last, to an end -- indulge me as I reflect on some @propublica data team highlights. 2020 was… shall we say… a challenge, but our reporters rose to the occasion and produced some of ProPublica’s best data journalism ever.
We kicked off the year with an investigation of the Catholic Church's failure to make transparent their lists of clergy credibly accused of abuse. A highlight: @emsimani and @schwanksta’s meticulously reported and designed app. https://projects.propublica.org/credibly-accused/
For months, @jeffykao tracked networks of fake Twitter accounts with suspected ties to the Chinese government. In January, they began tweeting about something called the novel coronavirus. https://www.propublica.org/article/how-china-built-a-twitter-propaganda-machine-then-let-it-loose-on-coronavirus
@jeffykao's work on China's online propaganda efforts re: the virus continued last week with this report with the @nytimes -- leaked documents revealed the true depth of the party's efforts to control the narrative around the pandemic. https://www.propublica.org/article/leaked-documents-show-how-chinas-army-of-paid-internet-trolls-helped-censor-the-coronavirus
As the virus spread, many lost their jobs & their homes. @JeffErnsthausen & @emsimani collected court records from across the country, finding scores of people getting evicted when they shouldn't have been. After their reporting, the cases were dismissed. https://www.propublica.org/article/despite-federal-ban-landlords-are-still-moving-to-evict-people-during-the-pandemic
Side note: you’d think it would be easy to find out if you were covered under the federal eviction ban. not true! So @JeffErnsthausen, @emsimani and @a_l collected, joined and cleaned address data and put it into an easy-to-search app. https://projects.propublica.org/covid-evictions/
The database they created from these court records powered much of our reporting on debt and evictions this year, including this story on debt buyers continuing to sue during the pandemic... https://www.propublica.org/article/debt-collectors-have-made-a-fortune-this-year-now-theyre-coming-for-more
... and this story on evictions in Arkansas, where you can be criminally charged if you can't pay your rent... https://www.propublica.org/article/when-falling-behind-on-rent-leads-to-jail-time
... and this story on school districts suing parents for not paying book fees during the pandemic (in partnership with our friends at the @SBTribune)... https://www.propublica.org/article/the-pandemic-hasnt-stopped-this-school-district-from-suing-parents-over-unpaid-textbook-fees
... and this story from the @propublica/ @TexasTribune newsroom, where data reporter @renLarson_ helped show how a loan company sued thousands of low-income Latino borrowers during the pandemic. The company dismissed the cases after their reporting. https://www.propublica.org/article/the-loan-company-that-sued-thousands-of-low-income-latinos-during-the-pandemic
We also looked at how the virus spread throughout nursing homes in New Jersey during the first few months of the pandemic. @HannahFresques examined the data and found one company that kept resurfacing, which resulted in this deep dive: https://www.propublica.org/article/careone-nursing-homes-said-they-could-safely-take-more-covid-19-patients-but-death-rates-soared
News apps developer @lyllayounes, an honorary data team member, worked with us on this piece that showed people living in areas with high air pollution levels were dying from the coronavirus at a disproportionate rate. https://www.propublica.org/article/new-research-shows-disproportionate-rate-of-coronavirus-deaths-in-polluted-areas
@lyllayounes' analysis resulted in a ProPublica first -- publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, along with our co-collaborators at @sunyesf. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abaf86
What else? Oh, there was an election this year. @mpetitchou expertly worked with all of our local @electionland partners & collaborated with @WRAL on this report about Black voters’ mail-in ballots getting rejected at higher rates. https://www.propublica.org/article/in-north-carolina-black-voters-mail-in-ballots-much-more-likely-to-be-rejected-than-those-from-any-other-race
Speaking of local investigations, @agnel88_philip worked with plenty of our Local Reporting Network partners this year, including this critical, first-of-its-kind examination of the Hawaii homesteading program with the @staradvertiser... https://www.propublica.org/article/hawaii-native-land-homesteads-department-of-hawaiian-home-lands
... and @ProPublicaIL data reporter @HaruCoryne looked at Illinois covid data all sorts of ways, while also digging deep into the reasons behind the chronic disinvestment of one struggling Chicago street. https://www.propublica.org/article/disinvested-how-government-and-private-industry-let-the-main-street-of-a-black-neighborhood-crumble
Those are some highlights, but they don’t even touch all the times our team played advisory roles, bulletproofed numbers, vetted analyses and helped steer other reporters away from using bad data this year.
I’m very ready to see 2020 kick the bucket (aren’t we all?), but mostly because I’m proud of our team & I can’t wait to see what they do in 2021. If you’re equally curious, I suggest signing up for our Big Story newsletter so you’ll be the first to know. https://www.propublica.org/newsletters/the-big-story?source=social
