Lucia Walinchus
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walinchus.bsky.social
Lucia Walinchus
@walinchus.bsky.social
Managing Data Editor, NBC owned stations. Public records attorney, journalist, ice hockey player/coach. Former bylines: NY Times , Washington Post, Eye on Ohio, etc.

Hearts= likes OR bookmarks
Pinned
According datajournalism.com, 60% of data journalists in their last survey were male. And a recent @pewresearch.org paper showed about 2/3 of "news influencers" are men.

So please share this with anyone who might be interested in broader horizons.

Representation matters!

go.bsky.app/8gob51T
🤓This year I read 17,162 pages in 53 books.

Below is a thread of what I liked and what I didn't.

What should I read next year #booksky?
December 31, 2025 at 1:17 PM
This didn't make my top 2025 posts, but I think deserves an honorable mention as it got the most re-shares.

We need to rethink our current communication architecture, or we will continue to reward conspiracy theories over quality content.

(please excuse typo below- should read "the president")
1/14 Our current constitutional crisis cannot be solved by voting Democrat or by removing president from office- this is a problem that will persist until we fix our information infrastructure.

Please hear me out.
December 30, 2025 at 7:26 PM
My top 10 posts of the year:
a new year 's greeting card with fireworks and the words happy new year
Alt: a new year 's greeting card with a crystal ball dropping, fireworks, and the words happy new year
media.tenor.com
December 30, 2025 at 3:55 PM
I do a lot with legal data, so as you can imagine I love this nonprofit!

They can add to this list reporting for @nbcnews.com-owned stations. If anyone has a good tutorial for their new API, please send it, as I have yet use it much.

Fantastic resource if you are interested in federal court data.
December 29, 2025 at 10:19 PM
You have to be a journalist or an attorney? Why not both?
December 29, 2025 at 1:38 PM
Here's my hot take on Christmas. 🎄
December 22, 2025 at 2:37 PM
👀🔍🎇 ICMI: This is one of the most thrilling/challenging datasets. There are 98 different sheets you can mix and match.

For example: there's a case sheet, and each case has several motions, etc.

Huge thanks to @shelbybremer.bsky.social (cited below) for putting a face to this anonymous data!
December 18, 2025 at 5:35 PM
1/7 Behind the story: calculating all the numbers behind this @nbcnews.com story took three months, 1,181 lines of code, and three former court employees to verify the methodology.

@joemurph.bsky.social @suzgamboa.bsky.social @joyywang.bsky.social

www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...
How the Trump administration pushed to reopen immigration cases, putting thousands at risk of deportation
An NBC News analysis found that the Trump administration has filed more than 117,000 requests to reopen cases immigration judges had deemed low priority.
www.nbcnews.com
December 17, 2025 at 9:35 PM
Informal poll: how old were you the first time you took public transportation by yourself? How did you learn the system?
December 15, 2025 at 5:54 PM
Very cool to see the @pwhlsceptres.bsky.social started a book club!

Our local women's hockey league actually also has a book club! Here's what we have read so far. What should we read next?

💙📚 🏒🙌
December 14, 2025 at 7:21 PM
1/4 Behind the story: Reporter Tony Pipitone found "Florida Soft-Sided Facility South" in this data. Hint: the sign outside has a different name.

He compared the governor's comments to this data, released through a FOIA suit. Check out this story with the results:

www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/s...
December 10, 2025 at 1:30 PM
New from @sciam.bsky.social: the article talks about Holland and I understand that because they are several standard deviations above everyone else.

For comparison: about 1% of US travel is by bike.

But I have to hand it to the Swiss! Biking in a country with that many mountains is impressive.
December 3, 2025 at 7:19 PM
Critics rave: “SPELL-binding.”
“Have Yourself A Merriam Little Christmas”

Merriam, a career-oriented lexicographer from the city, returns to her small town for the holidays and meets Webster, a ruggedly handsome librarian, who shows her the true DEFINITION of Christmas.
December 3, 2025 at 2:07 PM
Yet another reason to be grateful for modern engineering: 17% of all medieval cathedrals ultimately collapsed.
December 2, 2025 at 4:35 PM
Let's say you make a shirt that brings value to your customers over other brands- it's trendier, or better quality etc. You sell more shirts and make more money.

What if we could design an internet that incentivizes information over emotion?

www.niemanlab.org/2022/07/can-...
November 25, 2025 at 4:08 PM
Fantastic FOIA find.🔎
November 20, 2025 at 1:00 PM
1/5: Fascinating: researchers recruited elite basketball players, avid basketball fans, and regular folks to predict who would make a basket in a series of videos showing people about to shoot.

Players were much better at successfully predicting this. Even over “expert” watchers
November 19, 2025 at 2:08 PM
Wow commute times in NYC are solidly twice per year what they are in any other major city.

I would take an hour on a train though over half that in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Created in #rstats using @kylewalker.bsky.social's #tidycensus
November 18, 2025 at 12:32 PM
Ha! Now you definitely have to give the miniseries version a try. Anything less would shortchange the brilliance of Jane Austen.

For example, Firth in the Pemberly scene is the awkwardness and hilarity of all of us stumbling upon, and trying to impress, our crush.
November 17, 2025 at 1:20 PM
1/9 Fascinating book on a little-studied slice of sociology: the intersection of politics, race, suburbanization, & America’s largest church.

This is probably particularly interesting for Catholics but some good food for thought for anyone hoping to understand how the US has changed. 📚💙
November 14, 2025 at 3:13 PM
1/6 The irony of Pride & Prejudice is that Jane Austen never married the man she loved because of the prejudice she faced.

She had little $, his family didn't approve.

If only she could've made a living as a writer. After all she did create some of the most enduring works of English literature.💙📚
November 13, 2025 at 6:35 PM
To get an idea of the sheer scale of this change. 👇

Props to the reporters who were not allowed to film inside the courthouse but still managed to get some key glimpses of what is happening behind closed doors.
November 12, 2025 at 5:18 PM
To produce this @nbcsandiego.com piece, reporters attended over 400 immigration court hearings, talked to dozens of witnesses, and I spent weeks analyzing millions of rows of case data.

If you watch/read just one news story today, may I humbly suggest this:

www.nbcsandiego.com/news/investi...
Inside San Diego's Immigration Court
An in-depth look at how the Trump administration's policies are changing San Diego’s Immigration Court system and the fallout for local communities.
www.nbcsandiego.com
November 11, 2025 at 11:59 AM
1/12 Really interesting book on the foundations of our federal fiscal fiasco.

I get that reading a book on tax policy sounds boring. But actually, this was really well-written and eye-opening.

I suggest reading the whole thing but a few highlights:
📚💙 🧵👇
November 10, 2025 at 4:52 PM
There are a lot of great posts out there that aren't very highly ranked.

Don't rely on bluesky to find you great content; you can find it on your own! Here's how:

#Rstats via @northeasternu.bsky.social's Storybench

www.storybench.org/how-to-analy...
How to Analyze bluesky Posts and Trends with R - Storybench
If all you're doing on bluesky is scrolling, liking and posting, then you're riding a bike with training wheels. Here are simple tools using its open-source skeleton.
www.storybench.org
November 5, 2025 at 7:58 PM