They don’t typically get a byline (and usually constitute a larger group).
Posts by Ted Alcorn
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@jeremybmerrill.com @jkeefe.bsky.social @niemanlab.org @towcenter.bsky.social @columjournreview.bsky.social
Wonderful to see a really artful/ useful application of AI tools to a news archive. (Also super cool that it started in @columbiajournalism.bsky.social Lede program …h/t @dangerscarf.bsky.social )
Most of it. I began it in python when I was taking @columbiajournalism.bsky.social Lede Program in data journalism summer of 2024 but only in the last month with Claude code did I have capacity to make it a dynamic interface.
Curious who covers a beat? Search by keyword and see who has written about it the most. You can also see how various sections compare.
Globally, the patterns are telling. Israel, Gaza, West Bank way out ahead recently. China coverage peaked in 2014. India woefully neglected on a per capita basis.
The geography of U.S. coverage shows which states draw the most attention and which the least. Iowa surges every four years. The least covered state? Arkansas.
There are other quirky patterns, like when omicron ruined 2021 Thanksgiving. The decline of telecoms, and "but her emails." And A.I. — still not bigger than A.I.G.?
Comparing word-frequency in the headlines is wild. You can see just how dominant Trump has been—even interregnum—unlike any recent president. Elon Musk crowds out other zillionaires.
Search any reporter and you can see their beats, shared bylines, article frequency, wordiness, recent stories. Surprising no one, Maggie Haberman tops the recent charts.
I built a dashboard to explore the last 25+ years of @nytimes.com coverage. 1.5B words, 2.2M articles, 26K reporters. It's fascinating to look at the world’s preeminent attention-gathering org not as daily stories but as patterns of attention, ebbing and flowing. tedalcorn.github.io/nyt/
⏰ Applications are due MONDAY for the 2026 Public Health Reporting Fellowship!
This opportunity will award up to $7,500 each to five mid-career journalists to support reporting projects on the intersection of public health policy & health care delivery.
I'm sorry the guy changing the rules on the fly is named what
The world's food supply depends on agriculture science to protect crops & livestock from disease, of which the USA was a major supporter—until the dismantling of USAID last year. My story in @nytimes.com about how wavering US support could imperil what we eat. nytimes.com/2026/01/15/s...
finally, we're living through precedented times
The movie star I most want to hear speak at length. David Marchese and Kristen Stewart out on the wire. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/06/m...
Strong contender for fav. headline of the year @emilyanthes.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/12/02/s...
Read @tedalcorn.bsky.social on how two big @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social ideas have gotten a test run in New Mexico, of all places — with lessons worth learning being surfaced along the way. www.vitalcitynyc.org/articles/dep...
Albuquerque police make front-page news with successful hoof-chase.
Full footage: www.facebook.com/reel/1590537...
GUN CITY: there’s been a nearly ten-fold uptick in New Yorkers seeking concealed carry permits since 2022, per a new analysis of NYPD data. I tracked down the city’s most prolific instructor to see what it's all about. Today in @thecity.nyc& @thetrace.org. www.thecity.nyc/2025/11/12/n...
I've always sensed NYC is advantaged in citywide statistics by its scale: violence in the city's disenfranchised areas is severe, but they're bundled in with huge areas of the city that are prosperous & well cared for. Would need to disentangle that before reading too far into its laws/enforcement.
Would be great if we had a city-version of the National Crime Victimization Survey so we could see what share of various crimes (robberies, etc) involved firearms, to see if it is lower than elsewhere. (Shout out to the people who had this good idea: www.vitalcitynyc.org/articles/cri...)
NYPD supplementary homicide reports show a higher share of non-firearm homicides than firearm are domestic (38% v. 26%). 86% of white victims, 71% of Asian victims, 76% of women are killed w non-firearm. Whereas gang, robbery, drug-related are disproportionately w guns. www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/st...
Gun violence rate varies a lot between cities; non-gun violence rate less so. What we think of as a "safer" city is less gun violence where de facto, non-gun homicides make up a larger share. Chart/data from vintage @everytown.bsky.social report: centerforimprovinginvestigations.org/wp-content/u...
Smart take: Mamdani met voters where they were at, listened to them, centered them. To the extent he had social media “magic,” it was his “understanding that the masses are the message.”
I am looking forward to being done with an election and a lame duck disgraced mayor so that city government can get to fixing big problems out there, including this one exposed by my colleague @gregbsmithnyc.bsky.social.
Most memorably, in final remarks the bill's co-sponsor Rep. Micaela Lara Cadena responded to Muñoz:
"It was shared today that the alcohol industry made clear what they're willing to settle on. For me as a policymaker, that's not what I come to Santa Fe for."
Next up, Rep. Patricia Lundstrom, who helped kill the bill in committee last year, reiterated her opposition. "I'm not going to add more taxes onto McKinley County if I don't see a clear path, I'm just going to say that now."
He added that last year, after alcohol-friendly legislators killed the bill and subbed a much smaller penny-a-drink increase, that "was kind of a message that's the middle ground that the alcohol companies will will settle on."
My coverage at the time: nmindepth.com/2025/after-h...
In response to the presenters, Sen. George Muñoz said the local alcohol tax in his county of McKinley "hasn't changed behavior." Then, somewhat contradictorily, he said he supported allowing other localities to levy their own. "Why aren't we giving the excise tax option to every city and county?"