For the first match between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump, I led WIRED’s excellent research team in a live blog, fact-checking the debate as it happened in front of a large audience.
Author: Joanna Pearlstein
Tech Workers Are Major Funders of Hillary Clinton’s Campaign
In August I mined public data from the US Federal Election Commission to determine where Presidential candidates were getting their donations. Since individuals have to specify their employer when they make political contributions, it’s not difficult to identify which employers’ workers are interested in which candidates.
The results: The companies whose workers sent the most money to Hillary Clinton read like a list of who’s who in Silicon Valley, with Google workers sending more than a quarter million dollars to the Democratic nominee in a three-month period. Trump, meanwhile, collected the most money from workers at a real estate company in Mobile, Alabama.
Mapping Presidential Candidates’ Political Donations
In August 2016 I reported on the diverse geography of political candidate contributions, drawing on public data from the US Federal Election Commission.
One fun finding: While New York generally votes Democratic, Manhattan is neatly divided into red and blue halves: westsiders donated heavily to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, while the east side, where Trump Tower is located, sent cash to the Republican nominee.
The Thinking Eater’s Guide to Food
I came up with the idea for WIRED’s August 2016 cover package, which we nicknamed the Thinking Eater’s Guide to Food. The goal was to help readers synthesize competing issues of environmental concerns, nutrition, and scalability. I also wrote a story explaining what foods readers should turn to during the never-ending California drought. The package was nominated for a National Magazine Award in the Leisure Interest category in 2017.
Previously, I had analyzed a research paper about water consumption of different crops to create the WIRED guide to produce that won’t make the drought worse.
Silicon Valley Daycares Still Have Vaccination Problems
In 2015 while browsing a huge database from the California Department of Public Health (like you do), I discovered that some of the daycares associated with large technology companies had dismal rates of vaccination among their students. The implication: That employees of said companies were not vaccinating their children.
I reported that story here and here. When new data for the 2015-2016 became available, I checked to see if immunization rates had improved and described the verdict here.
America’s Gun Addiction, By the Numbers
California’s Pro-Vaccination Law May Be Working
As part of my occasional series investigating the vaccination rates of schools in California, I investigated new statistics regarding immunizations of kindergarteners. I found that a new state law requiring kids to get their shots may actually be working.
Review: The Ultimate Book for Nerds Who Cook
I reviewed J. Kenji López-Alt’s new book, The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science, for WIRED.com. I later interviewed Lopez-Alt onstage for the Commonwealth Club.
The Sickeningly Low Rate of Vaccinations at Silicon Valley Day Cares
In February I reported on the vaccination rates at daycares associated with Silicon Valley companies. In my investigation I found that the childcare centers affiliated with several large companies — Google and Pixar among them — had unusually low rates of vaccinations among young children.
I followed up on the story here and here.
I discussed my reporting on CNBC’s Power Lunch show.
Marketplace: Tech firms don’t just get their workers from Ivy League schools
The Schools Where Apple, Google, and Facebook Get Their Recruits
For the Infoporn section of Wired’s June issue, I analyzed LinkedIn’s massive database to determine which universities send the most graduates to tech companies like Facebook, Apple, Google, and Twitter.
Michael Lewis on Exposing Wall Street’s High-Tech Swindle
In April I interviewed best-selling author Michael Lewis in Los Angeles about his new book, Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt.
The Mad Scientists of Yum
For Wired’s October 2013 cover package about the future of food, I interviewed Steve Gundrum, CEO of the food development firm Mattson Foods, about how the company comes up with new snackables and what’s up with all the kale.
Wired’s 20th Anniversary: IPOs
For Wired’s encyclopedic 20th anniversary issue, I analyzed more than two dozen iconic IPOs of the past twenty years and compiled them into this infographic.
Talking bullets on New Zealand public radio
In March I was interviewed by the New Zealand public radio program This Way Up about my Wired piece on ammunition.
Marketplace: Billions of bullets manufactured every year
In February I was interviewed for American Public Media’s Marketplace, a public radio program that’s distributed nationally, about my piece about the ammunition industry.
If you want to stop gun violence, start with bullets
“Overkill,” my feature on the ammunition industry, appears in the March 2013 issue of Wired.
How Visionaries Spot the Future
In spring of 2012, as part of Wired’s 20th anniversary celebration, we asked eight prominent thinkers in the tech world about how they spot the future. My interviews with Chris Sacca, Esther Dyson, Joi Ito, Paul Saffo, Juan Enriquez, Tim O’Reilly, Vint Cerf, and Peter Schwartz can be found here.
Interview: Dan Ariely, behavioral economist
In June 2012, as part of the Live Talks LA series, I interviewed Dan Ariely, best-selling author of Predictably Irrational and The (Honest) Truth about Dishonesty. Here’s a link to the story.
As Lost Ends, Creators Explain How They Did It
Wired, May 2010
My interview with Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof, co-executive producers of Lost, for a feature package I co-edited to commemorate the series’ finale. PDF link
I later chatted with Wired senior editor Nancy Miller about Lost for the magazine’s Storyboard podcast.
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