Which leading economies will pay the biggest price for the Iran war? Not the US, it turns out
Great to end my first week on the @financialtimes.com economics desk working on this story with Sam and Myles
as.ft.com/r/7babde76-f...
Interest in posts about the NICAR data journalism conference March 5-8? This Bluesky feed collects posts with either the #NICAR26 or #NICAR2026 hashtag - plus searching for "NICAR" without a hashtag
bsky.app/profile/smac...
(Created with @blueskyfeedcreator.com ) #DDJ
This week on Behind the Money - the @financialtimes.com's
@peter.andringa.me explains the months of reporting he's put into understanding:
- who the private-sector businesses are that contract with US immigration agencies
- and how much ($$) they are benefitting
🎧: podfollow.com/behind-the-m...
My colleague @okr.bsky.social vibe coded his own minimalist word processor and used it to write about vibe coding his own word processor. www.ft.com/content/071b...
If you're a data journalist using Python and you are going to be at NICAR, we are running an introduction to Polars workshop.
schedules.ire.org/nicar-2026/#...
bsky.app/profile/emil...
A special FT magazine issue all about maps is out today, w great pieces by @okr.bsky.social and @theboysmithy.ft.com, plus maps by me on how glacial melt is redrawing Alpine borders, the battle to redraw America and more
Read it online here (though best enjoyed in print!) www.ft.com/content/efab...
Amid the hundreds of colleagues we’ve lost today, I wanted to highlight the BRILLIANT data/graphics folks who any newsroom should be fighting to hire right now—threading here:
To anyone laid off from the Post today, we are hiring:
Looks like me and @eadehemingway.bsky.social are going to be running a workshop on data analysis with @pola.rs at NICAR in March. Maybe see some of you there!
These aren't even graticules. Looks like AI slop to me.
I am so looking forward to being around this community of data journalists. If you are a NICAR speaker and I missed you, please DM me so I can add you to this starter pack!
go.bsky.app/H7iUZYd
That’s a perfectly good map — assuming the data analysis is accurate!
No, because the AI is used to generate code which (1) creates an audit trail of the analysis and (2) must actually run correctly to get any results.
This, by the way, is why newsletters are not a sustainable strategy by themselves for newsrooms that want to make first-party connections with their readers / audiences / communities. Inboxes are next to be intermediated.
In which @jburnmurdoch.ft.com and @sarahoconnorft.ft.com discuss how social scientists have been using AI to write code for data analysis, and what this means for other professionals who do similar work … like data journalists: www.ft.com/content/9183...
Front page of Chile's El Mercurio newspaper, leading with an election results map of the country oriented with north on the left and south on the right.
Never let the north-up convention get in the way of a good election map!
Harry Ford just met with reporters over Zoom. Was legitimately stunned by trade, loved Mariners org, but is looking forward to opportunity with similarly young Nats. He's currently in Oxford, England (where his father lives), says he plays to again play for Great Britain in WBC.
try out the FT's fiscal drag calculator!
www.ft.com/content/54cb...
My latest work project is the calculator in this, we're starting to do more of these smaller custom component projects and it's really exciting. Kudos to everyone for how quickly this came together.
NEW: The End of the Line: the centrepiece of Saudi Arabia’s Neom gigaproject - a 500m tall, 170km long wall-like building intended ultimately to house 9 million people - can’t get out of the ground, say more than 20 former Neom architects, engineers and senior executives.
ig.ft.com/saudi-neom-l...
This is absolutely fascinating: you can put your postcode in and see relative levels of deprivation (and the opposite) where you live in detail. I live where I grew up, so I could spend days doing this as I know the town so well. www.ft.com/content/9a1c... Huge congrats to @amyborrett.ft.com et al.
Exciting day: one of my fave colleagues @jburnmurdoch.ft.com and I are teaming up on a weekly newsletter to track what's really happening with AI & the labour market. No hype, just spreadsheets & shoe-leather. You can sign up here to get the first edition at lunchtime today! ft.com/AIshift
NEW: How mega batteries are unlocking an energy revolution
Massive shipping containers packed with powerful batteries are shoring up grids & extending the use of clean power
ig.ft.com/mega-batteri...
Latest visual story w/ @samlearner.bsky.social @inari-ta.bsky.social @samjoiner.bsky.social
🇳🇴 Nobel Institute probes leak of peace prize winner’s name
The Nobel committee is supposedly super secret, a bastion of confidentiality and yet... 🤔
FT www.ft.com/content/afc7...
Via driehoeksverhoudingen willen ontwikkelaars, chipbouwers en investeerders zich verzekeren van expertise, kapitaal en vooral rekenkracht. Voor @tijd.be ontrafelen @thomasroelens.bsky.social, @raphael.cockx.com en Stephanie De Smedt het spinnenweb van belangen.
multimedia.tijd.be/interactief/...
A screenshot of the FT's CMS showing an image component and a sparkled 'Alt text generator' button
The easiest way to show your newsroom is actually thinking about AI isn't the 50th summarization tool or chatbot. It's automating the jobs people don't want to do.
Like, bluesky's favourite: alt text!
I wrote about how we built this at the FT, with an interactive demo: tk.gg/posts/ai-alt...
Hi, I've been working on a lil' something.
A grid of small charts compares trends in house prices and council tax bills across UK local authorities since 1995. Each chart shows two indexed lines: one for average house prices (blue) and one for average council tax bills (grey), both normalised to 1 in 1995. The top section displays towns and cities in northern England — such as Barnsley, Bradford, Burnley, County Durham, Northumberland, North Yorkshire, Preston, Redcar and Cleveland, and Sunderland — where the two lines rise together over time, indicating that house prices and council tax bills have increased broadly in line. The lower section forms a cartogram map of London boroughs, where house prices have risen much faster than council tax bills. In boroughs such as Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster, Camden, Hackney, Islington, and Waltham Forest, the blue line representing house prices climbs steeply compared to the flatter grey council tax line. The layout mirrors the approximate geography of London, with boroughs like Enfield and Barnet at the top and Croydon, Bromley, and Sutton at the bottom. Source: Financial Times analysis of data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Valuation Office Agency (VOA). London cartogram design based on a concept by Max Gadney and Mike Gallagher.
Great piece of data journalism on the widespread anomalies in council tax banding, by @jonathanvincent.bsky.social and Sam Fleming and involving our great engineering teams on both the front- and back-end of the project. #ddj Plus a nod to some classic #dataviz design by @theboysmithy.ft.com:
Great reporting here on the political pressure affecting prosecutions of white-collar crime in the US
Featuring also great use of LLMs for structuring data 👇👇
on.ft.com/3VFYuW3
Good read on one of the most interesting characters in tech debate. As someone who used to read the housing bubble blogs like Calculated Risk back in 2005 /2006 (i.e. before the bubble burst), there's a similar vibe with @edzitron.com - and maybe he'll be proven right.
