S5E21: Malachy Browne - Data-driven Journalist for the Digital Age

Irish Stew Podcast

With a computer programming background and an instinct for reporting, Malachy Browne is on the vanguard of a new form of data-driven news coverage that is revitalizing journalism.
Co-founder and enterprise director of the New York Times Visual Investigations team, Malachy is pioneering the use of digital sleuthing, collecting and analyzing troves of video and audio, satellite images and other data, and creating 3-D reconstructions of crime scenes and geopolitical events to hold the powerful to account and deconstruct important news events.
These efforts have earned two Pulitzer Prizes, an Emmy, and other top-tier accolades for Malachy and his team.
Not bad for a Limerick lad from the village of Broadford, population 276!
He’d earn his master’s in international relations at the University of Limerick after getting his bachelor’s degree in engineering at University College Dublin.
Malachy tells of navigating between his core computer competency and his journalistic instincts (which he “blames” on his uncle, the legendary journalist Vincent Browne) which would lead him to Storyful, where he’d collaborate with past guests Mark Little, David Clinch, and others in creating the emerging innovative data-driven style of reporting.
Join us for an inside look at the way Malachy and his team are telling the world’s most critical stories—from the Arab Spring to the January 6th Insurrection—in an entirely new way.
Malachy Browne Links

• X/Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn

New York Times Links

• Visual Investigations
• Malachy Browne
• Day of Rage: How Trump Supporters Took the U.S. Capitol

Chapters

1. Introduction (00:00:00)

2. Broadford and Basketball (00:03:35)

3. Vincent Browne (00:06:06)

4. Engineering Background (00:08:12)

5. From Engineering to Journalism (00:09:44)

6. Towards Data Driven Journalism (00:13:18)

7. The Influence of Storyful (00:15:39)

8. Moving to the New York Times (00:22:38)

9. Quality vs Clicks in Journalism (00:27:23)

10. What Makes a Good Visual Investigations Story (00:31:02)

11. Syria: The Douma Chlorine Bomb (00:34:05)

12. The Mental Health Toll (00:39:49)

13. Ukraine: Combining Digital and Traditional Journalism (00:42:36)

14. Pulitzer Prize Recognition (00:47:47)

15. TIme Machine Journalism (00:49:44)

16. Jan 6: Day of Rage Documentary Shoutout (00:52:27)

17. Seamus Plug (00:53:47)

18. John and Martin Recap (00:55:49)

19. Credits (00:57:54)