R folks listening to this morning's #NICAR26 session on extracting data from documents and - importantly! - how to check your results: You can set up and run evaluations of LLM results with the {vitals} #rstats 📦
www.infoworld.com/ar... #DDJ
screenshot showing visualping.io/journalists
Screenshot of NYT article: military investigation reveals how the US botched a drone strike in Kabul
This is neat: Visualping can monitor websites and has a free journalist plan!
@azmatzahra.bsky.social used this in her Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation that found unreported civilian casualties.
#NICAR26
Oh! Congrats on the baby, though!
I love this! Every day on the Internet, I see clickbait that says “people who succeed at XYZ have this thing in common.” And I think “ugh, that doesn’t mean it CAUSED the success!”
(Also no I couldn’t stomach much coffee while pregnant.)
That’s fair as I didn’t specify😂
What was this T-shirt that everyone talks so much about? When I googled it I only got this:
@ire.org
How did we peak in 2016?!😂
Kids aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but this article misses the point- most countries for years had this same problem but the US did not until we kneecapped immigration. We should be working to keep smart, productive immigrants (like you!) in the country. Then population drop isn’t an issue.
Thank you, Laura for doing all this! So many awesome speakers.
I'm just a person
reading your online tutorial
begging you to use a real data set.
There's a reason law schools teach with real cases and business schools use stories of real companies. It's the best way to learn.
8/8 If you aren't already using Bluesky for your sanity, I suggest it in general as it makes stuff like this a lot easier.
You can, to some extent, design an algorithm of your own: github.com/walinchus/Bl...
7/8 Here is the link to everything I have just described in an .Rmd file:
github.com/walinchus/Bl...
handles <- bluesky$handle follow_everyone <- function(handle_to_follow) { bs_follow(subject = handle_to_follow, user = "walinchus.bsky.social", #switch this out with your own handle pass = Sys.getenv("BLUESKY_PASS"), auth = bs_auth("walinchus.bsky.social", Sys.getenv("BLUESKY_PASS"), save_auth = NULL), clean = TRUE) Sys.sleep(sample(1:10, 1)) #don't overwhelm things } purrr::map(handles, follow_everyone)
6/8 Then you can run this simple function I wrote to follow them all!
5/8 Make that into a data frame
get_socials <- bind_rows(socials)
And filter for bluesky:
bluesky <- get_socials %>%
filter(label=="Bluesky") %>%
mutate(handle=stringr::str_replace(url,"https://bsky.app/profile/" ,""))
4/8 Next, pull in the schedule:
NICAR2026 <- rio::import("https://ire-nicar-conference-schedules.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/nicar-2026/nicar-2026-schedule.json")
Make a dataframe of all the speakers:
speakers <- NICAR2026$speakers
And get their socials:
socials <- speakers$social
3/8 First you will have to create an app.
In Bluesky, go to Settings -> Privacy and Security -> App passwords and then click the big blue button that says "Add App password."
In your _console_, type _Sys.setenv(BLUESKY_PASS=_"put your APP password here")
2/8 Note: you could also do this as a starter pack. For example, here's one I did of female date journalists: bsky.app/profile/wali...
But I did not feel like searching for all those names. This was much easier to set up!
1/8 So you're excited to go to the @ire.org 2026 NICAR data journalism conference!
And you want to follow all the speakers online. This tutorial will show you how do this quickly with #Rstats and @bsky.app.
schedules.ire.org/nicar-2026/#/
Oliver argues that nothing can be done but I respectfully disagree.
Most of the $44 billion Musk borrowed to buy Twitter will never be repaid as the site doesn't actually make much money.
Banks have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to get back the money that they lend out.
Thanks, you too!
You okay?
Scott Pelley and Michel Martin look at video awards
7/ And there's many more! I encourage you to watch them all.
@michelmartinnpr.bsky.social
dupont.org/2026-winners
6/ And it was fascinating to learn how the @60minutes.bsky.social CECOT documentary came together:
dupont.org/60-minutes-t...
5/ Another good one: this @bloomberg.com documentary about how drug dealers use social media to target children. I had not seen this but will definitely have my kids watch it.
dupont.org/cantlookaway
4/ I also really appreciated getting to see the other winners. Here is my colleague @mikehixenbaugh.com who won for "Dealing with the Dead."
UNT has since stopped their practice of taking unclaimed bodies! @nbcnews.com
www.nbcnews.com/specials/dea...
4/ I realize that all awards are, to some extent, subjective. But I do appreciate that they bring attention to stories that you may have missed.
Even if you don't live in Dallas this is a story you can use anywhere: what is your deadliest road? Why?
www.nbcdfw.com/investigatio...
Scott Friedman walks through Edmonton in a crosswalk designed to let people go in all directions
3/ A big part of this was the Solutions Journalism piece: what are other cities doing to promote traffic safety, and why isn’t Dallas doing that?
www.nbcdfw.com/investigatio...
@soljourno.bsky.social
3/ After this aired, the city lowered some speed limits & stepped up enforcement. They poured millions into lights & crosswalks.
In 2025:
-52% fewer fatalities than 2024 on Loop 12, which is no longer Dallas’ deadliest road
-Traffic fatalities overall dropped 25%.
www.nbcdfw.com/video/invest...
2/ “Driven to Death” is a data-focused series looking at questions like: why does Dallas have one of the highest pedestrian death rates?
www.nbcdfw.com/tag/driven-t...
Picture of the Dallas NBC investigative team with the DuPont-Columbia award
1/7 Beyond grateful to be part of this wonderful team who received a 2026 DuPont-Columbia award.
@columbiajournalism.bsky.social selected 15 among ~500 entries.
Thanks to @parksdigsin.bsky.social, Scott, and the @nbcdfw.com crew!
(This is roughly equivalent to a Pulitzer for my print friends!)
Wow, Muppets Christmas Carol doesn’t even make the top three?!
