Episode 102: Rahul Bhargava
What Works: The Future of Local News · 2025-05-27 · 40 min
Episode notes
Dan and Ellen talk with Rahul Bhargava , a colleague at Northeastern University. Rahul is a professor who crosses boundaries: the boundaries of storytelling and data, the boundaries of deep dives into collaborative research and interactive museum exhibits and plays. He holds a master's degree in media arts and science from MIT, and a bachelor's degree in electrical and computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. But he also minored in multimedia production. He brings the power of big data research to the masses, through newsroom workshops, interactive museum exhibits, and more. Rahul has collaborated with groups in Brazil, in Minnesota and at the World Food Program. He helps local communities use data to understand their world, and as a tool for change. There's more to data than just bar charts. Sometimes it involves forks! His book, "Community Data," unlocks all sorts of secrets. Dan and Ellen also talk with Lisa Thalhamer , a longtime TV journalist who is now a graduate student at Northeastern. Lisa realized that like many fields, journalism suffers from a gap between academic research and its implementation in workplaces.