Especially Big Data

Data is all around us—even in places you might not think to look. We talk to an archivist for the New York Philharmonic and a Columbia researcher to learn about how digitized records are helping shape our understanding of culture and class in the 20th century.

The Panama Papers leak was one of the biggest in journalism history. Reporters from around the world spent more than a year combing through 11.5 million documents, including PDFs, images, and emails. In this episode, we’ll take a look at the tools and techniques used by the Panama Papers team and the ways they can be applied to fields outside of journalism.

In the spirit of upcoming Women’s Equality Day, we looked into the many factors affecting ladies’ participation in tech fields—most of which are not captured in the numbers. We spoke with p5.js creator, Lauren McCarthy, Harvey Mudd College president, Maria Klawe, and many others to learn about the subtle, nearly invisible gestures and structures that make participating in the field more difficult for those who are underrepresented.

In this episode, we’ll explore the great lengths people travel to collect a single data point. Between the door-to-door surveys of the U.S. Census, to the mountain treks for community health workers, and then to NASA’s satellites hovering more than 600 km above the earth– we’ll learn just how far data collectors go, and the many issues they deal with along the way.

We recently completed a project for National Geographic titled Space Monkeys & Tiger Wine: A Look at Global Animal Trade, which looks at the quantity, purpose, and primary locations of trade for more than 27 million animals worldwide. In our pilot episode, we dive into the implications and ethics of documentation, and explore whether your daily dose of rhino horn extract should be recorded for “medicinal” or “commercial” purposes.