S5E21: Malachy Browne - Data-driven Journalist for the Digital Age
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
New York Times Links
00:00 - Introduction
03:35 - Broadford and Basketball
06:06 - Vincent Browne
08:12 - Engineering Background
09:44 - From Engineering to Journalism
13:18 - Towards Data Driven Journalism
15:39 - The Influence of Storyful
22:38 - Moving to the New York Times
27:23 - Quality vs Clicks in Journalism
31:02 - What Makes a Good Visual Investigations Story
34:05 - Syria: The Douma Chlorine Bomb
39:49 - The Mental Health Toll
42:36 - Ukraine: Combining Digital and Traditional Journalism
47:47 - Pulitzer Prize Recognition
49:44 - TIme Machine Journalism
52:27 - Jan 6: Day of Rage Documentary Shoutout
53:47 - Seamus Plug
55:49 - John and Martin Recap
57:54 - Credits
Malachy Browne
Malachy Browne co-founded the Visual Investigations team at The New York Times, where he runs and reports projects as its enterprise director.
Founded in 2017, Visual Investigations is a pioneering form of journalism that combines traditional reporting with the analysis of visual evidence to find truth, hold the powerful to account and deconstruct important news events. The reporting often involves digital sleuthing, collecting and analyzing troves of video and audio, satellite images and other data, and creating 3-D reconstructions of crime scenes.
In 2023, Mr. Browne reported on the leaking of sensitive Pentagon documents to social media platforms popular with computer gamers. He was part of a team that received a Pulitzer Prize in 2023 for coverage of the Ukraine war, including an investigative film he produced that named the Russian unit and commander responsible for killing dozens of civilians in Bucha. He was also on the team awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2020 for exposing Russian culpability in crimes around the world, including the bombing of hospitals in Syria.
Mr. Brown co-directed “Day of Rage,” a documentary capturing in vivid detail what happened during the U.S. Capitol riot. He has led investigations into the killing of Breonna Taylor and other Black Americans by police, the Las Vegas mass shooting, chemical weapons attacks in Syria, extra-judicial military shootings in Nigeria, the Saudi officials who killed journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and the killing of a young Palestinian medic along the Gaza-Israel border.
This teamwork has bee…
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