Karen Yourish

I am a reporter for The New York Times in the Graphics department, combining traditional reporting with data and visual analysis.

What I Cover

Over 20 years of work in data journalism, I have developed a rigorous system for turning information — embedded in documents, media, speech and more — into data. Some big data sets exist only after you build them, fact by fact, over time. I comb through primary source material, conduct conventional interviews and turn unstructured reporting into structured data sets. With this data, I tell stories that would otherwise be impossible to see. I watched all 1,150 episodes of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” and turned the program into a data set that documented the show’s racist language and demonstrated that Carlson was normalizing white nationalism night after night. I was a part of the team that tracked the Covid pandemic, case by case. I read all of then-President Trump’s tweets — twice — and categorized them for a story about how Twitter shaped his presidency.

My Background

I joined The Times in 2013 after nearly a decade at The Washington Post. At The Times, I was part of the team that won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service and the 2020 Philip Meyer Journalism award for coverage of the Covid pandemic. I also won an Emmy and a Mirror Award for Best In-Depth/Enterprise Reporting for coverage of Tucker Carlson.

Journalistic Ethics

As a Times journalist, I am committed to upholding the standards of integrity outlined in our Ethical Journalism Handbook.

• Email: karen.yourish@nytimes.com

• X: @karenyourish

• Anonymous tips: nytimes.com/tips